MGMA Specialty Solutions: Gastroenterology

Quote of note:
From the Gastroenterology Administration Assembly e-Group Members Only

"Children are welcome at our facility, but they must be accompanied by an adult at all times. The Joint Commission warned us a few years ago about children being left in the waiting room alone and being abducted. If an [adult patient] brings in three kids, they all go in the exam room. That soon changes the patient's [mind about] us babysitting while they are talking to the doctor. Make a policy and make it known to the patients; you will not have a problem, as it is for the safety of the children."

Inside Gastroenterology

What you reward, you get – and lots of it: If the practice’s compensation method rewards greater productivity with higher income, physicians will be spurred to increase their work week, lengthen their work day or just work harder.

It’s a photo finish for cost and revenues in gastroenterology: Although median total medical revenue barely surpassed median total operating costs for gastroenterology practices in 2007, the former has lagged significantly behind the latter for the last eight years.

Education

March 18-19, seminar: Roadmap to a Better Performing Practice. Take a hard look at emerging models and technologies that work in other industries expert Frank Cohen, MPA and Six Sigma Black Belt, who will introduce you to process-improvement models based on Lean and Six Sigma.

March 18-19, seminar: Building, Leading and Maximizing Team Performance. Building and sustaining a high-performing cohesive work environment while maintaining constructive employee work relationships can be a significant ongoing challenge. This seminar focuses on developing a manager’s ability to build one-on one work relationships with employees, develop team-building efforts, and manage employee performance.

March 20-21, seminar: Achieving Efficient Practice Operations. Learn how to improve and differentiate your practice with operational changes that exceed the expectations of your patients, physicians and staff members.

May 5-6, seminar: Mastering Your EHR Implementation. If you are planning to implement an electronic health record (EHR) in your practice but don’t know how to get started, this seminar is for you.

May 6, seminar: Health system integration continues to grow as a model of care delivery. Accordingly, so do the challenges of successfully managing these complex systems. Register for "IDS – Real World Challenges. Real World Solutions," in Chicago.

May 7-8, seminar: Transforming Your Practice through Pay-for-Performance. This seminar will set the stage for your practice so you can participate in and profit from emerging reimbursement strategies.

May 16-18: MGMA 2010 Financial Management and Payer Contracting Conference. Get answers to answers for all of your financial management, revenue cycle and contracting dilemmas.

Oct. 24-27, MGMA 2010 Annual Conference. Reflect. Retool. Rebuild in the Big Easy.

Gastroenterology Resources

ASC Financial Performance Survey: 2009 Report Based on 2008 Data. A significant benchmarking tool for ASC administrators, MGMA's 2009 ASC Financial Performance Survey Report contains financial data on ASCs, including information about revenues, expenditures, patient volume, profitability, and much more.

Operating Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 3rd edition. Natural disasters, declining reimbursement and more diverse patient populations have made the need for specialized medical practice policies and processes even greater.

HR Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 4th edition. Human resource issues in the medical practice setting have a reputation for being more complex than the mainstream; thus, the need for specialized information has never been greater.

Electronic Health Records: Transforming Your Medical Practice, 2nd edition. While some electronic health record (EHR) implementations proceed on schedule with the team’s full participation and – seemingly – little effort, others flounder, stall, or struggle, experiencing only limited success or, in extreme cases, no success at all. What accounts for the difference?

Medical Fees in the US: 2010 Edition. This book includes everything you need to review your fees, set fees for new services, challenge low payments from third party payers and evaluate managed care contracts.

Data Sanity: A Quantum Leap to Unprecedented Results. Far too much emphasis has been placed on “tools, tools and more tools” (especially statistical techniques), resulting in rampant waste caused by poor everyday organizational use of data. This book offers a new way of thinking via a common organizational language based in process and understanding variation to motivate more productive daily conversations for everyone.

Integrated Delivery Systems: Ensuring Successful Physician-Hospital Partnerships. As medical groups, hospitals, and health systems position themselves for the new marketplace, they must be proactive in establishing new relationships and affiliations. Because the outcomes of health system integration vary widely, this book will help steer organizations toward a common purpose – in a way that is meaningful to providers, administrators, and health care leaders, and most of all, to patients.

See additional group practice management resources.

Advocacy

Congress and the Obama Administration will consider many proposals and policy options as they focus on health care reform. The MGMA Health Care Reform Resource Center provides access to the most up-to-date information on their efforts.