Medical group management journal最新文献

There is gold to be found in accounts receivable reports for those willing to mine the data. The key is to know how to interpret the information buried within the numbers and use it to recover monies owed. This article identifies seven reports that should be staples in every organization committed to improving its overall collection performance. Also included are tips on understanding reports and implementing changes.

Payers, regulators and physicians are battling over who best defines and controls medical quality. Esse Health, St. Louis, believes physicians should be in charge of quality. To make it possible, Esse has implemented an electronic medical record (EMR) system. This article outlines the reasons it choose an EMR, its process for putting the system in place and its drawbacks and benefits.

Mergers and acquisitions are common among managed care plans today, When an HMO puts itself on the market, it wants to make itself as attractive as possible to a potential buyer. The contracting strategies and operational changes it may pursue as a result offer both challenges and opportunities to physician practices. Whether contracting directly with managed care plans or participating in a contracting entity such as an IPA or PHO, you should understand how to best position your practice should an HMO in which you participate goes up for sale.

Physician practices are restructuring through merger and acquisition, and sale to practice management companies and to hospital systems. Many also are expanding internally by recruiting new physicians and opening additional offices. For many these strategies are working, but many others are experiencing operational and financial distress and failure that arise from rapid organizational growth without concomitant infrastructural change. Further, in the last several months, many national and regional practice management companies have decided to withdraw from the business, and others have declared bankruptcy. The number of physician practices that are in financial and operational distress is unprecedented. These groups require a solution, as proposed in this article.

The degree to which Americans are seeking and paying for alternative health care has caused some hospitals and medical groups to consider incorporating these services within the umbrella of their traditional care. The challenge is to find a standard of care that is consistent with allopathic traditions, but not so restrictive as to undercut the financial and patient satisfaction motives that prompted the interest in alternative care. By focusing on subjective complaints and chronic conditions, it may be possible to walk a path that leaves traditional medical standards intact while gaining the opportunity to attract the dollars and track the effectiveness of alternative care.

The physician-administrator team can take all that is good from the physician practice management company (PPMC) model and apply a variation of self-financing called a "tithe" in order to facilitate their group's growth. Essentially, a group can create its own PPMC for local consolidation purposes, contracting with payers, spreading risk contracts over a larger base of providers, getting access to ancillary services, centralized business office services, bulk purchasing and many other of the advantages extolled by PPMCs. Organization has value, especially in times of specific industry consolidation. Although most everyone agrees that the medical industry is undergoing tremendous consolidation, consolidation will not likely occur "top-down." Rather, it will occur more slowly--one group at a time, one locale at a time. If a group positions itself as a local consolidation leader and amalgamates other groups onto its "token ring," then all participants--especially those who initiate this consolidation--will reap the benefits.

To make its commitment to customer-centered care real, Dean Medical Center interviewed patients and created a "Vital Signs" scorecard. Performance is now measured according to those key areas specified by patients. Face-to-face communication from upper management to all employees and employee training has facilitated the program.