Rothman Orthopaedics is the nation’s largest private orthopedic practice delivering comprehensive musculoskeletal care across 30+ locations. Their integrated model spans non-operative and surgical care, physical therapy, diagnostics, and more, supporting millions of patient encounters each year.
The challenge
Increased volume exposed a critical bottleneck in patient flow
After the pandemic, Rothman Orthopaedics faced a familiar healthcare reality: rising patient volumes, increasing operating costs, and declining payer reimbursement. To address these challenges, Rothman’s leadership focused on reducing overhead while moving faster and more accurately to support their millions of patient encounters each year.
Rothman quickly identified document intake as a critical barrier to efficiently moving patients through their care journeys. The organization receives thousands of inbound faxes each day from outside facilities, creating significant manual workload for teams routing clinical information into the EMR and supporting scheduling. As volumes increased, backlogs created processing delays that slowed workflows, contributing to patient drop-off and created operational strain across the organization.
“Before Tennr, the team was extremely vulnerable to swings in volume. If one person was out for a day, we’d be catching up for multiple days.”
—Bryant Stetz, Chief Information Officer, Rothman Orthopaedics
Rothman evaluated solutions based on three core criteria: cost, performance, and long-term stability. Recognizing that technology only delivers value when it can reliably move patients forward without introducing delays or rework, they prioritized high-confidence automation. This meant selecting a partner capable of consistently routing clinical information with minimal risk, as well as demonstrating the financial and operational stability needed for a long-term relationship.
Automating workflows
Tennr Autopilot puts Rothman's patient flow on rails
Tennr met Rothman’s requirements where previous solutions fell short. Together, Rothman and Tennr implemented a disciplined approach to evaluating automation, using clearly defined QA standards to ensure the system met Rothman’s requirements for data integrity and reliability.
The results were immediate. Before Tennr, delays in document availability could extend a 15-minute appointment beyond an hour, leading to rescheduled visits, patient frustration, and lost clinical capacity.
“Autopilot has allowed us to be more efficient. We’re now able to see more patients, decrease their wait times to see a physician, and reduce the amount of time they spend in our clinics, making them much more satisfied."
—Bryant Stetz
The results
Life with Tennr
In practice, outcomes exceeded expectations.
“Tennr has enabled us to evaluate efficiencies across the business that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It’s allowed us to look at our teams and allocate resources to areas of the company where they’re needed most.”
—Michael Loke, VP of Patient Access and Support Operations, Rothman Orthopaedics.
Within one month of enabling Autopilot:
- Median document review time reduced from more than two minutes to just 23 seconds
- Document processing throughput per staff nearly tripled, with all documents processed within 24 hours of receipt
- Average monthly processing volume increased by 51%
- Daily manual validation work fell by nearly 40%
By stabilizing the front end of the patient journey, Rothman improved care progression and cost control, all while strengthening the patient experience. Intake became a reliable engine that moved patients predictably through scheduling, authorization, and visit readiness.
Unlike traditional healthcare systems that require constant IT involvement or vendor support, Tennr empowers front-line staff to manage and adapt workflows themselves. Team members with little to no technical background were able to learn the platform quickly, make small changes independently, and keep operations moving without added friction.
“I think the best thing about Tennr is how supported I feel in my role.”
—Amber Martino, Patient Access Quality Supervisor, Rothman Orthopaedics.
As Rothman continues to evolve its operations, Tennr remains a trusted partner in supporting ongoing optimization of the patient journey that keeps pace with the growing demand.