Franchise operates in more than 75 cities 

A fast-growing regenerative medicine franchise company based in Charlotte, N.C., will soon open its first location in Western New York.

QC Kinetix, which offers nonsurgical alternatives to joint and pain relief, plans to open Sept. 28 in a 3,028-square-foot space in Suite 100 of Snyder Commons, 4600 Main St. in Amherst.

The local clinic is owned and operated by Keith Oh, a project manager at a medical laboratory who decided to open a QC Kinetix location after he and his wife experienced benefits from regenerative medicine.

“I decided I wanted to start a business where I can help people regain their quality of life,” Oh said in a statement. “Now, after experiencing the relief the injections provided me in my knees and watching my wife earn her scuba certification after decades of shoulder pain, I hope to help thousands find the same sense of freedom after living with pain.”

QC Kinetix also has a famous spokesperson: Emmitt Smith, the former Dallas Cowboys running back and the National Football League’s all-time leading rusher. When that partnership with Smith was announced in May 2021, QC Kinetix operated in 17 cities. Today, the franchise company has locations in more than 75 cities.

Oh, who QC Kinetix CEO Scott Hoots called an “ideal QC Kinetix franchisee,” said the clinic will have four employees on opening day and is recruiting for another consultation coordinator and an additional medical provider. Dr. Aditya Gupta is the clinic’s medical director.

Snyder Commons owner Iskalo Development Corp. completed a three-and-a-half month renovation of the interior space to meet the brand of the national QC Kinetix franchise, noting it looks and feels like a medical spa or wellness clinic.

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Independent Health lands five-star rating

Amherst-based health plan Independent Health is celebrating a big ratings victory, which its longtime president and CEO Dr. Michael W. Cropp likened to “winning the Super Bowl.”

Independent Health announced it was one of only two health plans in the country to be recognized as a five-star commercial plan for clinical quality and member satisfaction in the 2023 Health Plan Ratings released recently by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, a private, nonprofit organization focused on improving health care quality.

Health plans are rated on a scale of 0 to 5 stars by NCQA. The organization rates plans that publicly report Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set results and also based on the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems.

Independent Health was a 4.5-star rated commercial plan from 2015 to 2022. The other commercial plan to get five stars this year was the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, which serves Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

In addition to an overall rating, NCQA’s Reports Cards website also scores patient experience, prevention and equity and treatment. Independent Health’s commercial plan received five stars in patient experience as well as prevention and equity, and four stars on treatment.

Cropp said he believes Independent Health’s commercial plan reached five stars due its push on diabetes management, given the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in Western New York. He also believes the health plan has made strides when it comes to prevention, meeting members where they are, getting better alignment between members and primary care physicians and building incentives to reward people for doing the right things.

“I think, over time, those lessons have really begun to yield the fruit, seeing that we’re able to achieve some levels of performance for some of these key metrics that are top of the game across the nation,” Cropp said.

The commercial plans of fellow Western New York health insurers Univera Healthcare and Highmark Western and Northeastern New York received four-star ratings in the 2023 Health Plan Ratings.

To view the 2023 ratings, visit reportcards.ncqa.org/health-plans.

UB unveils powerful MRI scanner

The University at Buffalo held a daylong imaging symposium this month to introduce researchers to a massive new tool: a 5.5-ton Philips MR 7700, one of the most powerful AI-enabled MRI scanners out there.

The new scanner, exclusively dedicated to research, allows researchers to gather in just a few minutes the same amount of information that conventional scanning can take two hours to produce, according to UB.

The huge scanner was delivered to UB in mid-June. What that involved was using a crane to hoist the scanner seven stories into the air and carefully lower it into the Center for Biomedical Imaging in UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

One of the ways the Center for Biomedical Imaging plans to use the new scanner is in studies on diseases in underserved or underrepresented groups.

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Five reads from Buffalo Next:

1. Students fueled the region’s job growth when they returned for the summer. When they went back to class, it blew a big hole in the Buffalo Niagara job markt.

2. UB grad students seek solutions that make a social impact.

3. Choosing Buffalo: Odoo decides WNY is right place for substantial North American growth.

4. After longtime CEO’s retirement, what’s next for Horizon Corporations?

5. A new Buffalo venture thinks it can help plants grow better indoors by using artificial intelligence.

The Buffalo Next team gives you the big picture on the region’s economic revitalization. Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com or reach Buffalo Next Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435.

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