Becker's ASC Review

12 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP to leverage optimal pricing. 3. I frequently call the vendors and suppliers and negotiate better pricing. Especially if it is a surgeon that prefers their service. 4. I negotiate shipment costs — meaning I have the vendor as oen as possible — pick up the cost if we use their service. 5. Negotiate implant costs with payers if possible for at least pass through costs. Sara Meinke. Senior Director of Enterprise IT Ambulatory Network Innovation at Baptist Health (Jacksonville, Fla.). A close partnership between medical staff, nursing, IT and other key stakeholders is the cornerstone of our collaborative efforts at Baptist Health System. To ensure that we are well-positioned to continue providing exceptional quality care that is affordable, we have focused on enhancing surgical services' analytics capabilities, specifically preference card optimization and standardization. Cost containment is key; we have a highly skilled data analytics team that has done a phenomenal job of creating real-time surgical services dashboards. Clinical and administrative leaders are better equipped to make informed decisions, backed with productivity and financial data, that will improve efficiency and reduce clinical variance. No doubt, with their engagement we will make a marked difference with curtailing costs. Leo Spector, MD. Spine surgeon and CEO of OrthoCarolina (Charlotte, N.C.). Rising practice costs are a real issue for medical practices. Unlike many other businesses, medical practices are unable to simply pass along these rising costs to the consumers — our patients. In fact, many would argue that healthcare costs are already too high and unsustainable. Our strategy is to look for alternative sources of revenue to offset our rising costs. One of our key strategies is the adoption of value-based care, for example bundle payments. Bundles enable us to both lower the total cost of care for our patients while providing an alternative source of revenue for our practice. Steven Winkler. Executive Director of Orthopedic Surgery Center (Baton Rouge, La.). You can only cut so much from the expense side of the profit and loss spreadsheet, so we have taken the following steps to either cut costs or increase revenue: 1. Carefully review each and every expense item. 2. Asked our vendors, "Are there any other ways to save on our costs?" i.e. supplier branded versus name-brand products, Medline versus Johnson & Johnson, etc. 3. Approached our implant vendors with this question: If we move to a sole vendor for implants, what would that do to the price of the implants? 4. How can we make our OR more efficient, increase throughput and/or reduce work hours? 5. Become involved with the local industry to educate them about the lower costs of an ASC when compared to the acute care hospitals and thus to steer their staff to us. 6. Work closely with the local occupational medicine providers, to ensure that we are their providers of choice for any orthopedic needs. 7. Develop relationships with plaintiff attorneys. 8. Develop relationships with the chiropractic providers. 9. Benchmarking. 10. Talk to other ASCs and read the literature for ideas from others. n Are 'monopolizing' entities eroding physician independence? By Patsy Newitt M any physicians are wary of the rapid growth of Optum, the country's largest employer of physicians and parent company of ASC chain SCA Health. Udaya Bhaskar Padakandla, MD, president of the Texas Society of Anesthesiologists, joined Becker's to discuss physician workforce trends and payer behavior. Editor's note: These responses were edited lightly for clarity and length. Question: What physician workforce trend is the most concerning to you right now? Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Padakandla: The trend that currently concerns me most is the vertical integration sweeping the healthcare industry. Physician practices are being bought out or acquired in a trend that is sweeping across this nation (now 90,000 strong) with Optum. Two things about it bother me more than any other: This increasingly leads to loss of independence in the decision-making ability of physicians in patients' best interest, and second, government watchdogs (like the FTC) are passive onlookers to this dominance of the physician workforce by a monopolizing entity. But at the same time, much smaller physician groups (with 3,000 to 5,000 physicians) get sued by the same entity for "monopolizing" the marketplace. Q: What payer behavior would you like to see changed in 2024? UBP: 1. I would like to see them remove/eliminate all prior authorization of patient care. It has now become crystal clear that PA is a tool they have unleashed to contain costs and maximize their profit margin and have absolutely nothing to do with improving the healthcare of the patients. Patients are the primary victims of the compromise in healthcare and providers are the collateral victims by means of denied payments and delayed payments. 2. I would like to see them play a fair and honest game in disclosing all the factors that are involved in calculating the qualifying payment amount as part of compliance with the No Surprises Act. Transparency at all levels of payer involvement is sorely missing (be that PBM payments, GPO deals, pharmacy benefits or electronic transaction fees). n

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