The healthcare system remains in a dynamic state of flux. We have all heard the story: the changing healthcare market brings reduced reimbursement for services, increased competition, and steadily increasing supply, maintenance, and equipment costs. Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) must keep in sync with this change or fail to survive the current market forces. However, because they represent a small contract to various vendors, many ASCs pay premium prices for inventory while receiving less from Managed Care Plans (MCPs) and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). This dilemma makes control of supply costs a top priority for ASCs. In reality, purchasing is becoming more strategically connected to the ASC balance sheet than ever before. Apart from personnel costs, supply and pharmaceutical purchasing represents the greatest expense category on our financial statement. Harnessing these costs directly relates to bottom line profitability. In addition, while performing cost savings magic, ASCs must maintain patient and surgeon satisfaction with the superior outcomes and state-of-the-art technology their reputations are based upon. Sound impossible? This article details how Surgery Center Plus, Inc. (SCP) implemented a cost containment project.
医疗保健系统仍处于不断变化的动态状态。我们都听说过这样的故事:不断变化的医疗保健市场减少了服务报销,加剧了竞争,并稳步增加了供应、维护和设备成本。门诊手术中心(ASCs)必须与这种变化保持同步,否则将无法在当前的市场力量中生存。然而,由于它们代表着与各种供应商签订的小合同,许多asc为库存支付高价,而从管理式医疗计划(mcp)和健康维护组织(hmo)获得的费用较少。这种困境使得控制供应成本成为ASCs的首要任务。实际上,采购与ASC资产负债表的战略联系比以往任何时候都更加紧密。除了人事费用外,供应和药品采购是我们财务报表上最大的费用类别。控制这些成本直接关系到盈利底线。此外,在执行节省成本的魔术时,ASCs必须保持患者和外科医生对其声誉所基于的卓越结果和最先进技术的满意度。听起来不可能吗?本文详细介绍了Surgery Center Plus, Inc. (SCP)如何实现一个成本控制项目。
{"title":"Ambulatory purchasing: harnessing supply costs.","authors":"P A Jager","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The healthcare system remains in a dynamic state of flux. We have all heard the story: the changing healthcare market brings reduced reimbursement for services, increased competition, and steadily increasing supply, maintenance, and equipment costs. Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) must keep in sync with this change or fail to survive the current market forces. However, because they represent a small contract to various vendors, many ASCs pay premium prices for inventory while receiving less from Managed Care Plans (MCPs) and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). This dilemma makes control of supply costs a top priority for ASCs. In reality, purchasing is becoming more strategically connected to the ASC balance sheet than ever before. Apart from personnel costs, supply and pharmaceutical purchasing represents the greatest expense category on our financial statement. Harnessing these costs directly relates to bottom line profitability. In addition, while performing cost savings magic, ASCs must maintain patient and surgeon satisfaction with the superior outcomes and state-of-the-art technology their reputations are based upon. Sound impossible? This article details how Surgery Center Plus, Inc. (SCP) implemented a cost containment project.</p>","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 3","pages":"10-3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21039150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In today's changing healthcare marketplace, hospitals across the US are rapidly moving toward developing integrated healthcare delivery networks. In addition, the emergence of managed care and the growing trend toward capitation have compelled hospitals to reduce costs in response to these changes. Moreover, this impetus to provide quality care at reduced cost has affected the purchasing behavior of many hospitals, forcing material managers to pursue innovative procurement methods. This article describes how the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Medical Center, (Charleston, SC) obtained significant savings in purchasing as a result of pioneering legislative reforms in the procurement process.
{"title":"A hospital pioneers reform of its state's procurement code.","authors":"T P Keating","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In today's changing healthcare marketplace, hospitals across the US are rapidly moving toward developing integrated healthcare delivery networks. In addition, the emergence of managed care and the growing trend toward capitation have compelled hospitals to reduce costs in response to these changes. Moreover, this impetus to provide quality care at reduced cost has affected the purchasing behavior of many hospitals, forcing material managers to pursue innovative procurement methods. This article describes how the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Medical Center, (Charleston, SC) obtained significant savings in purchasing as a result of pioneering legislative reforms in the procurement process.</p>","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 3","pages":"14-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21039151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic equipment planning for the outpatient environment: a practical guide to equipment planning for ambulatory construction.","authors":"G Renshaw","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 3","pages":"30-1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21039155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maybe we have more in common....","authors":"M Nowicki","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 3","pages":"28-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21039154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wake up to the Internet.","authors":"E Rizkalla","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 2","pages":"34-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21038427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over the last two decades we have witnessed the genesis of a rapidly consolidating market with nearly all healthcare providers now participating in a handful of purchasing organizations either alliance-based or major national GPOs. For a traditional GPO to survive, even thrive in today's rapidly consolidating customer environment, it needs to focus on five essential issues: negotiating agreements, electronically-formatted contract information, sales force and support staff, value-added programs, and equity ownership. This articles discusses these five issues giving suggestions for their implementation.
{"title":"GPO survival strategies.","authors":"E Norman","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Over the last two decades we have witnessed the genesis of a rapidly consolidating market with nearly all healthcare providers now participating in a handful of purchasing organizations either alliance-based or major national GPOs. For a traditional GPO to survive, even thrive in today's rapidly consolidating customer environment, it needs to focus on five essential issues: negotiating agreements, electronically-formatted contract information, sales force and support staff, value-added programs, and equity ownership. This articles discusses these five issues giving suggestions for their implementation.</p>","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 2","pages":"24-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21038424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Purchasing's global village.","authors":"R Betz","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 2","pages":"28-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21038425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Providing cost-effective high quality healthcare services ranks as the number one concern for anyone involved with the healthcare delivery system. While quality of care should always be the number one priority, controlling healthcare costs receives most of the attention. With limited healthcare dollars and providers assuming more of the financial risk for services rendered, a whole assortment of cost-containment strategies are being introduced in an effort to maintain some semblance of financial viability. Healthcare providers can approach cost control from two different angles. On the fixed-cost operational overhead side, traditional cost-containment techniques have focused on downsizing, maximizing productivity, staffing redesign, improved purchasing contracts, standardization, inventory control, and other more individualized restructured service models. On the variable-cost clinical side, cost control has been approached by introducing a variety of cost-containment strategies designed to improve efficiency and effectiveness of provider performance. While many of these strategies, previously discussed in the Journal of Healthcare Resource Management have stressed the importance of education, guidelines, pathways, and other clinical "tools for improvement," the success of many of these tools resides in the ability to provide real-time intervention. Real-time intervention rather than the more passive retrospective variance analysis has the greatest potential for producing cost savings by actually making a recommendation that prevents the unwanted event from occurring. In many institutions, the case manager bears the responsibility for monitoring and managing these programs. This article describes various case management models currently used by different institutions.
{"title":"Case management.","authors":"A H Rosenstein, T Propotnik","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Providing cost-effective high quality healthcare services ranks as the number one concern for anyone involved with the healthcare delivery system. While quality of care should always be the number one priority, controlling healthcare costs receives most of the attention. With limited healthcare dollars and providers assuming more of the financial risk for services rendered, a whole assortment of cost-containment strategies are being introduced in an effort to maintain some semblance of financial viability. Healthcare providers can approach cost control from two different angles. On the fixed-cost operational overhead side, traditional cost-containment techniques have focused on downsizing, maximizing productivity, staffing redesign, improved purchasing contracts, standardization, inventory control, and other more individualized restructured service models. On the variable-cost clinical side, cost control has been approached by introducing a variety of cost-containment strategies designed to improve efficiency and effectiveness of provider performance. While many of these strategies, previously discussed in the Journal of Healthcare Resource Management have stressed the importance of education, guidelines, pathways, and other clinical \"tools for improvement,\" the success of many of these tools resides in the ability to provide real-time intervention. Real-time intervention rather than the more passive retrospective variance analysis has the greatest potential for producing cost savings by actually making a recommendation that prevents the unwanted event from occurring. In many institutions, the case manager bears the responsibility for monitoring and managing these programs. This article describes various case management models currently used by different institutions.</p>","PeriodicalId":80029,"journal":{"name":"Journal of healthcare resource management","volume":"15 2","pages":"11-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"21038422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}