Orthopedic practices leave revenue on the table in ways that are easy to overlook: an idle OR, a missed call, a late-night note, a denial waiting in the rework queue. Each looks like a routine operational snag on its own, yet together they add up to a steady drain, one that grows as payers adopt AI to speed claims adjudication.
In a featured session at Becker’s 23rd Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC + The Future of Spine Conference, sponsored by Athelas, Ashley Coudron made the case that the tools to close these gaps already exist. A certified hand therapist of more than a decade who now serves as a regional sales manager at Athelas, Ms. Coudron argued that the real question is whether practices are ready to put AI to work.
1. The preventable cost of friction
Ms. Coudron framed administrative waste as a quantifiable, fixable drain. Citing research published in JAMA, she put U.S. healthcare administrative waste at $265 billion a year and noted that musculoskeletal claims rank among the most-denied categories nationally.
For a multi-surgeon group seeing $5 million in allowables, even a 14% denial rate, near the low end of the range orthopedic groups face, translates to roughly $700,000 in delayed or written-off revenue each year. Much of that, she argued, is recoverable on the front end. “Every case that is delayed, denied or not able to be appealed, it’s direct revenue that’s being taken off the table,” Ms. Coudron said.
2. AI and the front desk
One of healthcare’s highest-turnover roles is also one of its most consequential. When the front desk falls behind, calls go to voicemail, appointment slots stay open and providers wait between cases.
Ms. Coudron pointed to AI call centers as a present-day option for handling overflow and after-hours volume. These can schedule visits, adjust appointments and route wait-list patients while keeping the same headcount. In her experience, practices that add AI agents to call handling see missed calls fall by 30% to 50%, turning more inbound volume into booked visits.
The same logic extends to benefits verification, which she argued can be automated and shifted upstream so coverage gaps surface days ahead of a visit, well before the morning of surgery.
3. Ambient documentation: the readiest win
Of the four areas, Ms. Coudron described ambient AI scribing as the most readily available and the easiest to adopt. The stakes are both clinical and financial: providers average roughly nine minutes of charting for every 15 minutes of patient time and spend nearly two hours a day on after-hours documentation, the so-called pajama time. With recent AMA data showing 45% of U.S. physicians, and 48% in orthopedics, reporting burnout, she tied the documentation burden directly to retention and recruitment.
The outcomes data is catching up to the promise. 2025 findings published in JAMA Network Open from Mass General Brigham and Emory show ambient AI cut clinician burnout by about 21% at one health system and sharply lifted the share of clinicians reporting a positive documentation experience, from under 2% to roughly a third, at the other. A separate UCSF study found scribe adopters handled roughly 0.8 more patient visits a week and gained about $3,044 in additional annual revenue per physician, while claim-denial rates held steady, a sign the documentation continued to meet payer standards.
The principle, she stressed, is augmentation. “AI is not meant to replace clinical reasoning. It is meant to give physicians their time back.”
4. Prevention over rework
With one in five orthopedic claims kicked back on first submission, and denial rates in orthopedics and ASCs running 14% to 22% against an 11.8% national average in 2024, Ms. Coudron said AI’s highest-value use is preventive. By analyzing historical data across CPT code, payer and documentation type, AI can flag high-risk claims before they leave the practice, easing the manual rework that follows a denial.
That matters, she said, because the speed of payer automation now calls for an automated response in kind. “If you’re trying to fight AI with humans, it’s like coming to the war with a clipboard. It’s just not going to happen.”
Ms. Coudron’s throughline was that these gaps are solvable now, with technology that already exists. The harder variable is implementation, and she urged leaders to weigh EHR integration, IT lift, onboarding speed and security credentials before committing. Above all, she said, humans stay in the loop. The goal is to expand what teams can do, freeing clinicians to treat patients face-to-face and front-desk staff to build lasting relationships.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
