Case Study: Hoag Orthopedic Institute

When Hoag Orthopedic Institute began working with Pyxis Growth Partners, we were preparing for a major operational shift: moving from an outsourced call center model to an internal call center staffed by newly hired team members. At the same time, we were adopting HubSpot as the system that would support those new operations.

As a for-profit orthopedic healthcare organization in Orange County, California, supporting hundreds of affiliated physicians across hospital and ambulatory surgery center settings, we needed more than a CRM. We needed a centralized platform that could help a brand-new call center team manage patient conversations, document interactions, generate physician referrals, support compliance requirements, and build toward future reporting.

Before this project, our call center operations relied heavily on outsourced support and disconnected processes. That limited our visibility into call quality, patient interactions, referral activity, and the full patient journey. We did not have a centralized CRM that could serve as a single source of truth for our team.

We needed more than a software implementation. We needed a thoughtful operating system for our call center team, one that could support live patient conversations, guide staff through the referral process, and help us build a scalable foundation for future growth.

What were our main challenges?

Our biggest challenge was visibility. Without a centralized system, it was difficult to consistently track patient interactions, referral activity, call outcomes, and follow-up needs. We needed a way to bring those moving parts together so our internal team could work from one shared view.

We were also preparing to launch and onboard a new internal call center team. That meant the system needed to be simple enough for new staff to adopt quickly, while still being structured enough to support healthcare-specific workflows and compliance considerations.

The physician referral process was especially important. Our team needed to help patients find appropriate physician referrals based on factors like specialty, insurance, and location. At the same time, the referral process needed to be structured, auditable, and designed with regulatory requirements in mind.

In addition, we needed strong training resources. As new call center team members joined, we wanted to be able to onboard them consistently without relying only on live training or tribal knowledge.

What solutions did Pyxis Growth Partners implement?

Pyxis helped us implement HubSpot as a centralized CRM and operational platform for our call center and referral workflows. The implementation included CRM configuration, call center enablement, referral tracking, playbooks, reporting, training, and documentation.

A major component of the project was the custom physician referral lookup tool built directly inside HubSpot. This tool allows our team to search for physician referrals from within the patient record using key criteria such as specialty, insurance plan, and location. The tool generates three physician referral options and creates associated referral records, helping our team document the process and maintain an auditable history.

This was not a standard out-of-the-box workflow. Pyxis built a custom application inside HubSpot that connects patient information, physician data, referral logic, and the user experience our call center team needs during live conversations.

Pyxis also configured HubSpot and Aircall to support call center operations, including call handling, patient record access, activity tracking, and workflows for documenting outcomes. They created playbooks and scripts to guide agents through conversations, helping our team standardize how information is collected and how referrals are shared.

The implementation also included patient communication workflows, referral email support, consent and compliance considerations, user permissions, reporting dashboards, and live training. Training recordings and documentation were created so the system could continue supporting future onboarding.

One of the most valuable additions was a custom HubSpot assistant trained on our HOI documentation. This gives our team a supp documentation and training materials have also been a major part of the value. As we continue building the team, having recordings, guides, and a custom assistant trained on our own process documentation makes onboarding and long-term support much easier.

Working with Pyxis gave us both the technical build and the operational guidance we needed. They helped translate our call center goals, referral requirements, compliance considerations, and patient experience needs into a system our team can actually use.

This project has created a strong foundation for how we manage patient engagement, physician referrals, and call center operations moving forward.ort resource that can help answer questions based on the specific processes, guides, and materials created for our implementation. For a growing team, that kind of resource is important because it helps reduce dependency on any one person and makes the system easier to support over time.

What changed after implementation?

By the MVP launch, our team had a working HubSpot environment that supported the core call center and physician referral process. The production playbooks were live, the physician selector was available in the live environment, user permissions were reviewed and adjusted, and training had been delivered with recordings available for future reference.

The new process gives our team a more consistent way to manage patient interactions. Staff can work from the patient record, use guided scripts, collect the information needed for referrals, generate physician options, and send referral information through a structured workflow.

It also gives us better operational control. Instead of relying on fragmented processes or disconnected systems, we now have a centralized platform that supports call center activity, patient documentation, referral tracking, and reporting.

The implementation also created a stronger foundation for future phases. As our needs evolve, we can continue expanding HubSpot to support additional integrations, reporting, patient communications, and deeper visibility into the referral-to-surgery journey.

"What stood out most about working with Pyxis Growth Partners was their mindset. They never dismissed a challenge as impossible—they took the time to understand our goals, explored every option, and built solutions around the way our team actually works. Their ability to combine technical expertise with operational guidance gave us confidence that we could build a scalable foundation for our call center and physician referral process." - Jennifer Greenleif, Director of Marketing, Business Development, & Strategic Partnerships

 

What has been the impact on Hoag Orthopedic Institute?

For us, the impact has been the ability to move from concept to operational readiness with a platform built around our actual workflows.

We now have a system that supports our internal call center team, gives staff a guided process for patient conversations, and allows us to manage physician referrals in a more consistent and trackable way. The custom referral lookup tool is especially important because it brings a complex process directly into the CRM environment where our team is already working.

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