How Healthcare Reform will Influence Private Practices

The annual MGMA conference in San Antonio offered several sessions regarding different strategies practices can use to thrive in the uncertain healthcare market.

Chuck Peck and Deborah Walker Keegan, PhD, FACMPE are two presenters during the MGMA conference that spoke about ways private practices can continue to be profitable if healthcare reform is fully implemented.

To read more about their presentations and suggestions for private practices to remain strong through healthcare reform read an article at Physician's Practice, or click here: http://www.physicianspractice.com/mgma12/how-healthcare-reform-will-influence-private-practices?GUID=98C7CA21-2AF6-465B-A27F-FC956DFC383F&rememberme=1&ts=22102012

What Makes a Private Practice Successful?

Even in this changing economic and healthcare environment there are some private practices that are thriving.  Although many practices are merging or being bought out by larger health systems, there are some very successful groups that will continue competing in a private model.

What makes a private practice successful   How can they stay competitive when hospitals are becoming the driving force in communities?  MedScape has just published an article on how private practices can continue to be successful.  

The article reminds us that even a physician practice is still a business, and it should be run like a business at it's core.  One of the keys to cultivating a profitable practice lies in understanding, accepting, and embracing the fact that a medical office is still a business. 

Successful practices plan for long-term growth and have immediate and mid-range action plans that advance their longer-term objectives.  Profitable practices also know how to attract attention.  Some practices tout the expertise or specialized skills of individual physicians, who have name-recognition in their community. Others tap their social and professional networks to attract new patients. Still others differentiate themselves through effective advertising that highlights their unique offerings.

Rock-solid practices don't waste their time on guesswork, they depend on data.  They know their charge volume and payer mix and how long it takes to get paid by a particular payer for a specific procedure. Success depends on having the right data at the right time and trying to make the right decisions with it. 

Read the full article at MedScape, or click here: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/772563_1

Turning Hospital-Physician Conflict into Collaboration

This economic climate has more potential for change than anything we have seen recently.  With the possible dramatic changes in healthcare including changing reimbursement models, possible Medicare changes, ACOs, and even the trend towards hospital employments, physicians are bracing themselves on how to be stable in a shifting environment.

Physician's Practice has published an article on how physician's can pro-actively embrace these changes, including new ways of collaborating with hospitals and health systems as opposed to fighting the relationships, to plan for a positive change in an uncertain healthcare environment.



Read the full article in Physician's Practice, or click here: http://www.physicianspractice.com/mgma12/turning-hospital-physician-conflict-collaboration?GUID=98C7CA21-2AF6-465B-A27F-FC956DFC383F&rememberme=1&ts=19102012