Scaling Excellence in Orthopedic Care Without Slowing Patients Down

By Blakely Roth | May 28, 2026

For leading specialty organizations, growth brings both opportunity and complexity. The challenge isn’t just seeing more patients—it’s delivering the same exceptional, patient-first experience at scale.  

For award-winning organizations like Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists of Green Bay (OSMS), combining top-line care with five-star experiences is what sets them apart. A three-time recipient of Newsweek’s Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers in America, OSMS has built its reputation on clinical excellence, innovation and an unwavering commitment to patient care. 

With over 40 providers serving more than 13,000 patients each month across nine clinics and two surgery centers, OSMS continues to raise the bar for what modern orthopedic care should look like. As patient demand surged, OSMS faced a familiar challenge for high-performing organizations: how to scale operations without compromising the experience that made them successful in the first place. 

Built on a Patient-First Culture

At its core, OSMS isn’t just focused on delivering care—it’s focused on delivering better experiences. 

That mindset shows up everywhere: 

• A commitment to reducing friction for patients  
• A focus on empowering staff to spend more time on meaningful interactions  
• A drive to continuously improve operational efficiency  

When long check-in lines and manual processes began to impact both staff workflows and patient satisfaction, OSMS didn’t settle. Instead, leadership saw an opportunity. Sandy Titulaer, a Registered Nurse, and current Clinical Applications Manager at OSMS, shares, “I knew we had the opportunity to make an impact at check-in, because there were mornings where we had 20 or more patients in line. Our goal was to streamline the process so patients could just walk in and sit down.”  

OSMS matched increasing provider and patient numbers with one solution that enabled staff to work proactively and patients to take ownership over their healthcare experience. 

A Strategic Partnership to Scale Excellence

Clearwave partnered with OSMS, helping the organization make strategic shifts to patient access and care, by standardizing workflows and driving efficiency system-wide. With online scheduling from Clearwave, OSMS increased booking accessibility for patients and control for their organization. For a practice spanning nine clinics and two surgery centers, a high level of scheduling control isn’t just a convenience—it’s what makes a consistent patient booking experience possible at scale, without requiring centralized oversight of every booking decision.  

Titulaer shares, “I appreciate that Clearwave’s Scheduling interface is visually appealing and easy for patients to use. We can be as specific as we’d like with our scheduling workflows or broaden them. We have the control we require to achieve our booking goals.” 

OSMS unified intake, eligibility and payments with Clearwave into a single patient-led workflow, driving collections up while reducing operational and revenue bottlenecks across the organization. 

Transforming Access, Efficiency and Financial Performance

With Clearwave, OSMS didn’t just improve one part of the workflow—they elevated the entire patient journey and revenue cycle experience. 

A frictionless front door

Today, 99% of patients self-register via kiosk, tablet or mobile, reducing average check-in times to just 90 seconds—an 85% decrease. Explaining the impact, Titulaer notes, “Having self-registration has made a huge difference for us, and it’s been a big help for staff. We’ve added signs to direct patients to the kiosk or mobile QR code, but for the most part patients go right up to the kiosks when they walk in.” 

The impact goes beyond speed: 

• Patients move through the process on their own terms  
• Staff are freed to focus on higher-value interactions  
• The waiting room experience is fundamentally transformed  

Titulaer adds, “There was an adjustment period for staff, but they have the process down and find that they have more time to greet patients and genuinely interact with them.” 

Data clarity and consistency from the start

With real-time visibility into eligibility data and seamless athenaPractice integration, staff can proactively manage workflows instead of reacting at the front desk. With Clearwave Eligibility, OSMS staff can review pertinent pre-appointment tasks faster. Titulaer shares, “Eligibility has been a big win for us. Before Clearwave, as patients arrived, we would still have to determine what insurance they were on, if we take it and if it was active.”   

The result: 

• Faster pre-appointment preparation  
• Fewer administrative bottlenecks  
• Greater confidence across teams  

Titulaer explains the shift, “Clearwave’s ability to help us get a clear picture of patient information ahead of time has been incredibly impactful. The dashboard shows staff what needs attention— like self-pay or a prior auth—which helps them complete pre-appointment work faster, ensuring it’s ready upon patient arrival.” 

Stronger financial outcomes 

By integrating payments directly into the registration process, OSMS significantly improved collections performance: 

• 76% of co-pays collected at check-in  
• Nearly 60% of “Today’s Balance” is captured upfront  
• 85% overall increase in collections  

This shift reduces downstream billing friction while creating a more transparent, seamless experience for patients. Titulaer shares, “We’ve seen a clear rise in collections. The self-registration process makes it easy for patients to pay at check-in, while also helping us capture past-due balances and upfront payments for services like injections.” 

Expanding without adding headcount

As OSMS continued to grow, access became a critical lever—not just for patient satisfaction, but for organizational performance. 

Through smart online scheduling, OSMS unlocked new levels of accessibility: 

• 39% of appointments booked after hours  
• 24% scheduled last-minute  
• 16% of bookings driven by new patients  

Extending their award-winning patient mentality, OSMS ensures their community has fast access to care when and where they need it. At the same time, OSMS maintains the control they require to book patients correctly. Titulaer says, “Our previous scheduling solution was very broad. With Clearwave, we can ask specific questions and customize workflows by specialty. We started with rheumatology and orthopedics and have progressed into pain and spine bookings. It’s helpful for our specialties to get patients booked with the right provider and offer that online availability.” 

Empowering Patients. Elevating Teams.

One of the most meaningful outcomes of the partnership is how it reshaped the role of staff. Before Clearwave, administrative teams were burdened with manual tasks—forms, eligibility checks and payment collection. 

Today: 

• Patients take ownership of their experience  
• Staff have more time to focus on manual tasks or engage with patients  
• Providers receive strategic information before visits to support enhanced care 

OSMS’s ongoing success shows what operational transformation looks like when it’s done right— the focus should not be replacing people, but instead, empowering them to support patient outcomes at every step. 

Supporting the Next Generation of Healthcare Organizations

OSMS represents a growing class of specialty healthcare leaders: organizations that are scaling rapidly while holding themselves to a higher standard of care and experience. What they need isn’t just software. 

They need a partner that can: 

• Support multi-site, high-volume operations  
• Unify fragmented workflows across the patient journey  
• Drive measurable financial and operational outcomes  
• Enable growth without adding administrative burden  

By delivering a patient-led, digital-first experience across scheduling, registration and payments, Clearwave helps leading organizations like OSMS operate efficiently, collect effectively and deliver the modern experiences patients expect. 

Raising the Patient Engagement Standard—Together

OSMS didn’t just solve for long lines or manual processes. 

The organization redefined what the care experiences can look like when they’re built around the patient. With Clearwave as a partner, they’ve been able to scale that experience across every location, provider and patient interaction. 

Because for organizations like OSMS, success isn’t just about growth. It’s about making every patient interaction positive, no matter the number. 

Learn more about OSMS and book an appointment with their award-winning orthopedic specialists today! 

Read the full story on how OSMS eliminated check-in bottlenecks and grew collections along the way.