Varicose Veins, Hip Replacement & Healthcare Policy

[HTML1] In today’s first segment, Your Health Matters host Christopher Springmann speaks with Dr. Mark Montgomery, Director of Interventional Radiology at Scott & White Healthcare, about Endo Venous Laser Treatment for varicose veins. Dr. Montgomery explains what varicose veins are and describes a procedure that, for the right candidate, can reduce the procedure by hours and recovery time by weeks. “Nowadays, patients are treated much less invasively,” he says. “And we use our image guidance with ultrasound and x-ray to perform these procedures. What we do is we get into the vein that is the culprit vein, the insufficient vein, the vein that’s not working. And I like to think of it as taking the trunk of a tree out. You take the trunk out and with these little laser catheters, and then the veins just kind of shrivel up and they go away.”

In our second and third segments, we hear from Dr. Rick Schultz, Director of the Orthopedic Division at Scott & White Healthcare. Dr. Schultz explains Total Hip Arthroplasty, or what most people call hip replacement surgery. He describes the benefits of the Direct Anterior Approach — also known as DAA. It’s a minimally invasive procedure which, for the right candidate, can decrease both discomfort and recovery time. This is a welcome improvement on what is already one of the most successful operations in America. Total Hip has a success rate of 95% plus, meaning a highly positive outcome that meets or exceeds everyone’s expectations, both the doctor’s and the patient’s.

Finally, Christopher Springmann speaks with Dr. James Rohack of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Scott & White. The words “healthcare policy” may sound a bit dry, yet policy drives America’s two trillion dollar plus healthcare system. And Dr. Rohack is very interested in the medical, social, employment and economic consequences of making the right policy decisions. He’s the first to tell you that lots of folks are looking over his shoulder, carefully analyzing and scrutinizing the Center’s positions, since it provides information and education to the public, to policy makers and to elected officials on solutions to the challenges facing health care delivery and financing in Texas and the nation.

Segment A (0:00 – 11:00)
Your Health Matters host Christopher Springmann speaks with Scott & White Healthcare’s Dr. Mark Montgomery about Endo Venous Laser Treatment for varicose veins.

Segment B (11:01 – 22:00)
Christopher Springmann speaks with Scott & White Healthcare’s Dr. Rick Schultz about the direct anterior approach to hip replacement.

Segment C (22:01 – 33:00)
Dr. Rick Schultz on the benefits of surgery at Scott & White Healthcare

Segment D (33:01 – 44:00)
Christopher Springmann speaks with Scott & White Healthcare’s Dr. James Rohack about healthcare policy decisions.

More about Mark Montgomery
Dr. Mark Montgomery is Director of Interventional Radiology and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Radiology at Scott & White Healthcare’s Temple, Texas clinic. He earned a B.S. from Baylor University and an M.D. from Texas A&M University. He interned at Scott & White and continued his training in abdominal and interventional radiology at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Montgomery is certified by the American Board of Radiology, Vascular and Interventional Radiology.  He joined Scott & White in 2000 and also serves as an Associate Professor of Radiology at Texas A&M.

More about Richard Schultz
Dr. Richard Schultz is President of the Medical Staff and Director of the Orthopedic Division at Scott & White Healthcare’s Round Rock, Texas clinic. He earned a B.A. from Rice University, and an M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. He trained in orthopedics at Scott & White and joined the staff in 1998. He is certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery and an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine. Dr. Schultz’ patient care emphasis is arthritis surgery, direct anterior total hip replacement and hip resurfacing, total and partial knee replacement, and muscle-sparing joint replacement.

More about James Rohack
Dr. J. James Rohack, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.C.P., is the Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy and Medical Director for Health Plan System Improvement at Scott & White Healthcare in Temple, TX. A professor of Internal Medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine, Dr. Rohack earned his B.S. from University of Texas-El Paso and his M.D. from University of Texas-Galveston. He trained in internal medicine and cardiology, and joined Scott & White in 1986. He was just elected full-time president of the American Medical Association, and recently met with President Obama to address rising health care costs in the U.S.

More about Scott & White Healthcare
When Arthur C. Scott, M.D., and Raleigh R. White Jr., M.D., began their medical practice in Temple, Texas in 1897, they shared one fundamental conviction: medicine must serve the people. Today, Scott & White Healthcare is a fully integrated health system — the largest multi-specialty practice in Texas and the sixth largest group practice in the nation. Scott & White employs more than 1,100 health care providers and research scientists who care for patients covering 25,000 square miles across Central Texas.

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About Christopher Springmann

Christopher Springmann is Executive Producer and Senior Correspondent of Life, Love and Health, the award-winning health and wellness program that reaches millions daily on multiple news, talk and sports channels including Sirius XM, CNN, FOX, NPR affiliates, American Forces Network, and HealthRadio.net.

Life, Love and Health is also Mr. Springmann’s latest endeavor in a journey of “creative convergence” that started as a photographer for Time, Fortune, National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. He moved into writing leadership profiles for Chief Executive and California CEO magazines, which in turn provided the inspiration for creating Life, Love and Health: to fulfill the unmet need of telling America’s health story. Mr. Springmann meets this need in entertaining and emotionally engaging ways, with the authentic voices of real people, including a diverse group of doctors and nurses, patients and their families, plus researchers and innovators in the health-and-wellness field. He relies on the credibility and persuasiveness of people’s passionate storytelling to get the point across. People identify with the experiences of others and are encouraged to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.

Christopher is also the Host of Life, Love and Health on WomensRadio. Life, Love and Health seeks to ultimately make a difference in people’s lives by encouraging individuals to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.