Leesa Galatz, MD, MBA, is the Mount Sinai Professor and Chair of the Leni and Peter May Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A shoulder and elbow surgeon, her clinical practice spans sports and reconstructive procedures including instability, rotator cuff disorders, and joint replacement, delivered through a multidisciplinary team approach to operative and nonoperative care. Her research career has centered on the basic science of rotator cuff disease and tendon healing, and she serves as Co-Principal Investigator on two NIH-funded projects addressing rotator cuff degeneration and repair and tissue engineering strategies for tendon repair. She lectures nationally and internationally each year on shoulder and elbow pathology.
Leadership and Impact
If you had a magic wand and could permanently solve one of your department’s biggest challenges right now, what would that be?
The problem I would eliminate with a magic wand is the challenge in dealing with third party payers. Increasingly, the effort to take care of patients and perform surgeries is complicated by interference that necessitates peer-to-peer conversations, dealing with denials, and explaining all of this to patients. Recently, insurance companies have somehow become empowered to make clinical decisions regarding orthopedic care of patients. We are experiencing denials in radiographics studies, different types of injections, and surgical procedures. We are being asked to send patients with end stage arthritis to six weeks of physical therapy before joint replacements. Sometimes these patients can’t even walk, let alone perform physical therapy. Some of these decisions reflect a complete lack of understanding about patient care and more importantly they are dismissive of the clinical decision making by physicians and surgeons. This is disheartening to both patients and orthopedic surgeons. Our knowledge and training are commoditized and devalued in this process. To be questioned by someone who has not practiced medicine recently or has not seen the patients that we are seeing making these decisions on our behalf is probably unethical on some level.
Over the years, we have been out of network with a few insurance carriers. The burden of this should not be underestimated. Patients must apply for continuity of care exceptions to continue to receive treatment. Cancer patients must apply for exceptions to continue to receive lifesaving therapies. It results in millions and millions of dollars of loss for health systems that are already stretched with increasingly thin margins. We see patient volume drop off and the effort to recover payment for care delivered is immeasurable. This is a complex problem that I don’t think is going away anytime soon.
If you could perfectly execute the accomplishment of three goals for your department over the next three years, what would those goals be?
Goal #1 would be for every faculty member to reach a desired level of productivity. We are still hiring many young faculty and helping to build their practices. I envision a department where every orthopedic surgeon is doing exactly what they want to do and doing a lot of it. We practice in a very competitive environment so often ramp up in practices takes a couple of years. My goal is to help those young faculty develop new business and to foster their professional development. They entered academics to pursue certain academic goals, and I want them to reach those goals.
Goal #2 I would like the department to participate in more clinical trials. We are very productive in terms of our research, however, a lot of it is unfunded research. I recognize the value of this for the faculty and for the residents and students who participate in these studies, however I really would like to expand our armamentarium for doing sophisticated cutting-edge clinical trials.
Goal #3 My third goal is to develop programs that interface with other departments. For example, we are opening a woman’s Health Center at Mount Sinai and as the department, we will help staff this women’s center, providing musculoskeletal care to women of all ages. We also just launched our own the bone program and our fracture liaison service. We seek to expand our coverage to women for counseling and treatment of osteoporosis by referral rather than seeing only patients after fractures. We are developing a referral service and for those patients who are more complicated medically, a fast track referral to rheumatology or endocrinology for more advanced pharmaceutical treatment. I think the future of medicine is in collaborating with other services, and in creating an integrated service line for the delivery of musculoskeletal care.
The AOC and the Power of the Collective
What is the most valuable way that the AOC helped you and your Department?
The AOC has provided an opportunity for me to interact with other chairs of varying specialties within orthopedic surgery and to discuss some of the problems that face all of us in an environment that invites open discussion and interaction. There really is no other format that focuses exclusively on the business of orthopedic surgery, and for better or for worse, it is a business at this point. I have really enjoyed taking best practices away from other departments and working to apply them in my own setting. It has also been reassuring in many ways to realize that other chairs face the same challenges that I do.
The AOC has also been one of the few meetings where my staff can attend and share in other’s knowledge and insight. The special sessions for them have been meaningful and impactful. In summary, think the unique content and the communicative environment together make AOC extremely valuable.
The Human Side of the Role
Share one personal accomplishment from 2025 that you are especially proud of.
My passion outside of medicine is raising and showing Morgan horses. In early 2023 I purchased a young horse. I had watched him work in a barn where I was training with a coach and honestly, he had me at hello. I bought him from his breeder and when he was ready, I showed him in the 2024 season. We had a very rough start and about halfway through the season, it occurred to me that I was showing him in the wrong discipline. It is tough to change course in the middle of a season so after our final grand nationals competition that year, we started over in the new discipline. This was something new for me as well. So, he started working differently, I started riding differently and off we went for the 2025 show season. For much of the year we were outclassed and outshone by the more mature and experienced horses in this very competitive division. We had some rough goes until our very last competition of the year. In the championship class at the end of the week at the nationals, I finally had my first clean ride. We were reserve world champion (equivalent to a silver medal) out of a very competitive field of horses! I’m grateful for the hard work of my trainers for coaching us both and for believing we could do it!
When was the last time someone told you they were proud of you for the work you do, either at work or at home, and what was that about?
Last June I received a lovely thank you note from a graduating administrative chief resident. He also went to medical school at Mount Sinai, so was present to witness a transformation of the department since I have been here. The role of an administrative chief resident is a difficult one here at Mount Sinai as essentially, they take care of all the daily scheduling, problems and issues with regards to the other residents. He learned from this administrative experience how challenging it can be to manage people and operations. It made him realize that the job of Chair is just that, plus more. This was an amazing note to receive. He noted the evolution of the department over his tenure here and commented on the justice and equitability of the decisions that I make. I really appreciated hearing this, and quite frankly, it is the first and only time anyone has ever thanked me for doing this job.
Just for Fun
What is your go to favorite meal?
Mexican food. I’m from the southwest so this is the food of my people!
If you could binge on any fast food and be guaranteed not to gain any weight, what would it be?
Mexican food, but not Taco Bell!! Would be hole in the wall joints where there is home-cooked, authentic Mexican food. Food trucks with very spicy salsa!
If you were snowed in for a weekend and could binge watch one TV show, what would you choose?
Asking me to pick one is impossible. I love Tehran, Scandal, the Diplomat, and the first season of Hijack.