Question: What is the biggest cause of bankruptcy in the US? (HINT: This is highlighted in the media)
Answer: Medical Bills
Question: Is that what this blog is about? Answer: Not at all, because you already know that.
Beyond the cost of medical bankruptcy to consumers, the cost of bankruptcy and "oops" moments for providers and the health systems they operate within is increasing too.
With the rising cost of the business of medicine, decreasing reimbursements, ever-increasing reporting and data entry requirements (aka why your doctor keeps typing when you are speaking to him/her), and dealing with insurance companies, doctors are having a harder time collecting and having to hire more people to chase the bills for them.
Which is why more and more doctors are giving up on the idea of having their own practice in favor of working for mega-groups or health systems. In a 2018 article in the New York Times titled "The Disappearing Doctor: How Mega-Mergers Are Changing the Business of Medical Care," the authors write on how new deals and mergers involving major corporations "loom over doctors’ livelihoods, intensifying pressure on small practices and pushing them closer to extinction."
The idea is simple in theory: if you merge systems and supposedly overhead, you decrease costs. But as a recent example from Wayne State University's Faculty Practice Group shows, this is not so simple after all. The group, one of the largest, filed from bankruptcy protection last November and the university is on the hook for over $16M as part of the reorganization plan.
Why is this? According to a recent article in Modern Healthcare, "Over the past decade, UPG's number of physicians declined by 50 percent, which hurt clinical revenue and made its leased network of suburban offices untenable, the filing said."
In the same NY Times article I cited here, a doctor named Dr. Navya Mysore is highlighted. She speaks about being frustrated working for a large healthcare system, and moving to One Medical, a venture-backed practice.
As a clinician or health system leader, this information lends itself to one reality. You need to save for a rainy day fund and align your organization and clinical group to meet the same mission. Too many times, contracted physician costs pile up without bringing in the reimbursement to meet them. Hint: RVU and physician compensation based on productivity is not emphasized nearly enough.
Too many times as well, business development and appropriate recruitment of patients lags far behind fancy operations and new approaches to customer service. While service is still king, so is investing in business development if you want to remain relevant in your service area.
After all, even when the doctor joins the big fancy group like Wayne State's, that is no guarantee they will know how to manage.
If you like what you read here, make sure to subscribe to get my blogs delivered to your email. Also share about TEB and what we do to develop doctor's businesses through TEB Health and develop future budding doctors through TEB Academy to your friends and family.
To get in front of the line, you can take a willing donor who wants to be paid. If not, you still get a place in the line but it may take longer. Is it fair? No, but neither is life.
Disneyland does this with flash pass. I guarantee you that I will get a lot of responses about how unethical this is, but consider that patients already desperate for organs travel to 3rd world countries to get these organs at enormous personal risk.
There, donors are paid. Is it right? No, but neither are a lot of other things we witness daily.
When choosing between life and death, I choose life and giving patients choice. #travel #countries #risk #life #things #personal #fair #world #take #choice #donation
More here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-daughters-gift-to-her-mother-saves-two-live...