Vori Health members get playlists of personalized exercises like this one to build strength and restore motion. This exercise strengthens your hips and can help reduce low back pain.
Marpai adds industry-leading, doctor-led MSK solution to its Value-Based Care Network for self-funded employer health plans to lower costs and improve member health.
As the U.S. healthcare system grapples with near-astronomical levels of medical spending, all eyes are turning to musculoskeletal (MSK) care as a top driver of these costs. While many concerted efforts have been made to decrease MSK spend, such as the shift to outpatient surgical facilities, reference-based pricing, centers for excellence, travel surgery programs, and in-home patient care, the best approach may be one that gets back to the basics. How do we accurately identify each key player contributing to the total cost of care and leverage that data to inform our cost-saving strategies?
Over the past three years, the healthcare industry has experienced several paradigm shifts that have fundamentally reshaped our approach to medical care. One of these key shifts is the rise of telemedicine. What started as a necessary alternative to traditional in-person care during the pandemic has now become a staple in the healthcare system.
The healthcare system currently operates on a one-size-fits-all model that typically treats symptoms, not the person as a whole. This narrow focus neglects the integrated nature of the body, leaving countless individuals with inadequate and unnecessary care. Employers who rely on these care models not only feel the downstream impact of rising healthcare costs, but also growing benefit dissatisfaction among team members. As benefits teams tackle this problem head-on in a tight labor market, it's clear that some solutions make this task easier than others. Personalized healthcare solutions not only help teams support the unique needs of their diverse employee populations while maintaining uniformity in benefits—they also boost outcomes and lower costs.
When you solve a problem at its root, you get better outcomes. We built our award-winning, patient-centered care model for MSK conditions upon this premise, and we are thrilled to report validation of its clinical outcomes from the Validation Institute.
Hear Vori Health CEO Ryan A. Grant, MD, MBA, FAANS and David Essary, President of Allstate Benefits, discuss the rising costs of MSK care, why the delivery of care model matters, and how to compare the different offerings in the market for employers/plans.
As national healthcare expenditures balloon into the trillions, a closer look reveals musculoskeletal (MSK) care to be a leading contributor to skyrocketing costs.In 2019 alone, MSK care totaled almost $253 billion nationwide, pushing employers to contribute even more to employee health plans.That same year, MSK care accounted for approximately 31 percent of total employer medical expenses, according to a National Business Group on Health report.
I became a neurosurgeon because I love making things better. Since founding my first company as a teenager, I have always pushed to make the world a better place. I developed and patented medical devices, founded and advised companies, and pursued years of medical training to improve healthcare. As a neurosurgeon, I was awestruck by modern medicine’s ability to make things better—to ameliorate the sick, reverse paralysis, and help an individual in a true time of need. But I also saw how modern medicine can make things worse, especially when it comes to treating back, neck, and joint pain.
I have often been asked why I left the comfort and security of my successful career in academic medicine to co-found Vori Health with my amazing partner, Ryan Grant, MD. The answer is simple: I am a doctor committed to helping people lead healthier lives, and I often struggled to do this in our traditional healthcare system. As an orthopedic surgeon, I like to fix broken things. But repairing such substantial flaws in our traditional system required building something new—something better.
Musculoskeletal pain is the leading contributor to disability in the world, including missed days of work. Musculoskeletal pain is also the primary reason opioids are prescribed, often inappropriately. Despite well-published guidelines encouraging non-opioid treatments, 21.5% of patients are currently prescribed opioids at their initial visit for musculoskeletal (MSK) pain.
For more than a decade, Ruth Shelton, a 68-year-old woman living in Memphis, had been battling debilitating back pain. She was unable to live the life she wanted—until she came to Vori Health.
Yes—especially if you eat the rainbow! Studies show that eating anti-inflammatory foods (think berries!) and taking certain supplements (hey, Vitamin D!) can lower pain from musculoskeletal injuries.
Research suggests certain foods can worsen inflammation. If you are battling inflammation from a condition such as diabetes, heart disease, or arthritis, Christi Bowling, a registered dietitian nutritionist and director of nutrition at Vori Health, recommends limiting the following foods:
Teaching is a selfless profession, in more ways than one. Although it does not seem like a physical job, the endless dedication and day-to-day demands can add up on the body. All the hours of standing, sitting, bending, and shuffling to various activities puts teachers at risk for developing muscle and joint problems—most notably low back pain. The good news is that simple solutions are within reach. Read on for ways teachers can improve how they feel and protect their bodies for years to come.
Although pictures usually paint a thousand words, your x-rays are not the most powerful part of your joint replacement story—even if they show bone-on-bone. "We treat the patient, not the x-ray," explains Jim Fiechtl, DO, a sports medicine physician at Vori Health. “The right time to have joint replacement surgery, even if you are bone-on-bone, depends on important factors like your age, overall health, and quality of life."
You're not alone in your discomfort—many people feel pain in their lower backs after a few hours on their feet. The exact reason can vary, but more often than not, the root of this pain is postural. Your posture, which is how you position your body in space, can play a crucial role in how you feel. For many reasons, including the large amount of time we spend sitting, the muscles that support our spines (like our abdominal and back muscles) tend to be weak. When we stand, these weak muscles slowly give way to gravity. We slouch, arch, sway, or lean to relieve the pressure, but eventually our muscles spasm and our joints ache from the extra work—resulting in the likely cause of your discomfort.
Nowadays, you can’t go anywhere without seeing or hearing something about cannabidiol (CBD). There are so many options—creams, tinctures, salves, lozenges, gummies, you name it—and so many potent claims for its benefits, including muscle and joint pain relief.
If you’ve ever spent a day striving to be optimistic—to see your glass as half-full instead of half-empty—you may have noticed your mood lift and your body relax. Those feel-good sensations are not just in your head. In fact, practicing positive thought can improve your health—and research proves it.
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