4 fixes that will boost your bottom line

by Kenneth H. Cohn Happy New Year. Sometimes, the fuss in Washington causes temporary amnesia that healthcare, like politics, has a local focus. So this post contains the first four tips on ways to engage physicians where you work to improve clinical and financial outcomes and create a more satisfying practice environment: 1. Convene a panel of your top physicians to look at how improved collaboration can reduce expenses. A surgeon once confessed to me, "I may ignore others' opinions, but I definitely listen to physicians who refer patients to me or to whom I refer patients for preoperative clearance and postoperative management." Take, for example, a CEO at a Rocky Mountain tertiary care facility who asked the Medical Advisory Panel at his hospital for advice on how to cut supply costs. The panel worked together and with an interdisciplinary supply cost reduction group to achieve more than $500,000 in ongoing supply cost savings in the purchase and utilization of orthopedic implants, heart valves, radioisotopes, and anesthetic and cardiovascular medications. While this task force may not seem novel, it represented the first time that physicians and administrators at this hospital had worked together to achieve sustainable, long-term results and represented a cultural change. ("Making hospital-physician collaboration work." Healthcare Financial Management. 2005. 59(10):102-108). 2. Boost revenues by facilitating discussion between physicians who work at the same hos...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs