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September/October 2005
In this month's issue:
The Hidden Costs of Owning an Endoscopy
Center on Your Own
Owning an endoscopy center can be an excellent way to increase
your income as a gastroenterologist, without adding to your workload.
Acquiring passive income through facility fees is a good
business decision. And while it might be tempting to think that
you will earn even more if you open a center on your own, without
involving a management company, there are hidden costs with
this approach.
If you develop an endoscopy center on your own, you may encounter
these common problems:
- Increased workload
Planning, developing, and operating a successful endoscopy center is a complex
undertaking that requires a unique set of skills, knowledge, and experience in
areas such as law, finance, real estate, construction, licensing and accreditation,
staffing and personnel management, equipment and supply procurement, payor contracts,
and billing. Adding to your workload in order to overcome the steep learning
curve required to open a center on your own is not a good use of your
time and talent.
- Greater stress
The right management company can provide you with a turnkey solution that is
hassle-free. Allowing an experienced team with all of the required skills and
knowledge to plan, develop, open, and manage your center can save you a lot of
headaches. Working on your own, you can make costly mistakes that require much
of your time and energy to correct. An endoscopy center should provide increased
income, without increasing your stress level.
- Lower reimbursements
Negotiating favorable contracts with payors is critical to obtaining the highest
reimbursement rate for the
services provided at your center. A team with a thorough understanding of managed
care methods, group plan contracts, legal and liability issues, and a record
of successful fee schedule negotiations can be invaluable. Trying to handle these
negotiations yourself – or assigning them to someone on your staff – can
lower your income stream.
- Higher operating costs
Obtaining favorable pricing from equipment, supply, and service vendors can yield
significant savings that directly impact your bottom line. Procurement professionals
working for a management company can obtain favorable pricing through contract
negotiations and bulk purchasing discounts. They also can evaluate vendor performance
and implement inventory control measures to contain costs without sacrificing
service quality.
Conclusion
Business decisions should be made on the basis
of obtaining the best possible return on the time and money invested.
It's
important when planning your own endoscopy center that you make
a wise, long-term decision that takes all factors into account.
The benefits of working with a management company that brings valuable
services to the partnership can far outweigh the revenue shared.
Owning an endoscopy center should enhance your lifestyle by giving
you greater income and increased control over your time – without
headaches and added work.
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Avoiding Accreditation Agony -
Part
3 In our last issue, we explained how
- Detailed charting
- Complete credentialing
- Appropriate quality improvement studies
can significantly improve the likelihood of a successful on-site
survey. This time we will look at three more ways that you and your
team can avoid accreditation woes.
- Proven safety and security plans
To protect your patients' well being and ensure the long-term success of
your center, emergency and fire drills must be conducted on a regular basis and
documented thoroughly. Without documentation, these exercises will not
yield the type of information that can be used to improve these contingency plans
and/or the related staff training. Plans must address how the staff will respond
to power and phone outages, natural disasters, fire, broken water lines, and
other situations that can put patients and staff at risk. Every protocol must
be tested with a "dry run" to make sure what appears on paper can actually
be implemented when required. It's when you stage a fire drill, for example,
that you realize a dedicated meeting place and patient roster are essential to
accounting for everyone's whereabouts.
- Protection for patient confidentiality
All too often a patient's confidentiality is violated without the center's
staff realizing there is a problem. Some common problems include: the lack of
separate patient sign-in sheets at the front desk; patients' names written
on a whiteboard in the pre-op area; and the use of curtains to separate
patients in the pre-op area – permitting private conversations between
physicians or staff and patients to be heard by other patients. Patient
privacy should always be a matter of concern and every possible precaution should
be taken to ensure that it is not breached.
- Active staff participation and practice
The best way to prepare staff members for an onsite survey is to allow sufficient
time to learn and practice applying the procedures. It's important to provide
personnel with orientation training, reviews of processes, and competency assessments.
A mock survey can help them understand what questions they may be asked and why.
You can assure them it is acceptable to say they don't know an answer,
but that they know how to find it. Mock surveys – like fire drills – can
help you spot any shortcomings in staff skills and knowledge. Further, this role
playing should include both the clinical and non-clinical staff, plus the center's
physicians – anyone actively involved in the center's operations.
EndoCenter Partners can help you own a profitable, attractive,
well-equipped endoscopy center where you can high quality care. As
our partner, our in-house experts will manage all aspects of the
JCAHO accreditation of your center. To learn more, visit endocenterpartners.com,
or call 866.871.3676 (toll free) or 650.496.4130.
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A Profile in Profitability – San
Francisco Endoscopy Center
 For many physicians, the road between contemplating owning
an endoscopy center and actually developing one is long, with many
twists, turns, and delays along the way. According to Damian Augustyn,
MD, "A core group of us had been talking for years about building
our own endoscopy center. After meeting with EndoCenter
Partners, everything finally fell into place and we were on
our way."
"It's always a challenge in San Francisco to find a appropriate space," noted Dr. Augustyn, "but
after the right location was found, the full build out for the center progressed
smoothly. EndoCenter Partners' employees have proven to be very conscientious
every step of the way. They were responsive to the challenges of ramp-up and
then to the efficient operation of an endoscopy center."
In assessing the factors critical to the success of an endoscopy
center, Dr. Augustyn noted that it is important to get contracts
with payers in place as quickly as possible, to manage staffing to
the volume of business, and to stay on top of collections. EndoCenter
Partners specializes in offering a turnkey solution for endoscopy
center development and management that addresses each of these issues,
freeing our physician partners to focus their attention on delivering
high quality patient care.
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