“Patients are attracted to places that have better service, and those will be more successful.”
That’s why she and her staff remain vigilant in tending to
the overall financial health of the practice, from monitoring incoming cash flow and outgoing expenses to incorporating new technology and planning future growth. Stephenville obstetrician-gynecologist Janie McMillion, MD,
agrees that the viability of her multispecialty practice, Ste- phenville Medical and Surgical Clinic, hinges on being able to pay the bills, particularly at a time of decreasing payments and increasing regulatory mandates. “The government is cutting reimbursement right and left, so as doctors, we have to figure out ways to be more efficient.” But in a smaller, rural community in particular, success also means having satisfied customers, she says. “We see patients daily outside of the practice, at the grocery store or church, and we have to be accountable to them. To have happy pa- tients, you have to provide the level of care they are expecting. And sometimes in a small town, patients expect a little bit more.”
Meeting those expectations often means having the right staff and technology to help a practice run smoothly so physi- cians can focus on delivering high-quality care, adds John Car- michael, MD, a family physician and president of the Thomas Spann Clinic in Corpus Christi. “I feel like if we can do that and stay abreast of current technology and focus on cost con- trol, we’ll be okay.” He adds that having a strong financial footing not only means staying viable, but also “it absolutely helps us maintain our independence.” Those are just a few of the strategies practices are putting in place to stay economically viable in today’s changing health care environment. The three Texas groups Texas Medicine spoke
18 TEXAS MEDICINE February 2014
with are doing that quite successfully, as measured against the Medical Group Management Association’s (MGMA’s) 2013 report Performance and Practices of Successful Medical Groups. The national study looks at how practices stack up against benchmarks it considers crucial to the overall financial health of a medical practice, including how well they are able to man- age costs (profitability and cost management), how efficiently they use their resources (productivity and staffing), and how well they manage billing and collections (accounts receivable) — in other words, cash. Highlights from the study showed that what MGMA considers to be “better-performing” practices are staying a step ahead of their peers in those areas by:
• Keeping revenue up and operating costs down, • Collecting on claims quickly, • Investing in electronic health record (EHR) technology, and • Using patient satisfaction surveys.
Although the MGMA survey focuses mostly on groups, it includes practices of various sizes, specialties, and settings. “These are truly key performance indicators that apply
across the board,” MGMA’s Todd Evenson said. He handles practice consulting and research at the organization as vice president of consulting services and data solutions. The report reveals that practices are adapting as the health care system evolves, and it’s partly because of those changes that “medical groups’ financial viability will be very important and continue to be.”
Visit
www.mgma.com for more information about the study, which is available for purchase. Meanwhile, the Texas Medical Association’s Physician Ser-
vices Organization (PSO) is gearing up with products and ser- vices to help practices implement the strategies they need to maintain their financial stability and stay in control of their practices in the future health care environment.
Good staff: a good investment To help stay viable, the practices Texas Medicine spoke to had
one key characteristic in common: They all put many of the details of the day-to-day practice management — schedul- ing appointments, checking insurance benefits, making sure claims and payments are filed and collected timely — in the hands of a practice manager or other staff. As Dr. Carmichael explains, “Part of financial success is hir- ing good people and getting out of their way.” Similarly at ABCD Pediatrics, delegation “is intentional,” Dr. Arnold added. “We make it so that the insurance requirements are not the first thing the doctor is thinking about when in the room with a patient. The patient’s needs are the first thing.” And most of the better-performing practices (72 percent in the MGMA survey) described their practice arrangements as “collaborative,” as opposed to physician- or administrator- dominant. “We want to free up our doctors as much as possible to pro-
vide patient care,” Stephenville Clinic Practice Administrator Donita Jones said.
JIM LINCOLN
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