MGMA Specialty Solutions - General Surgery

Quote of note
From the Ambulatory Surgery Center Assembly e-Group Members Only

On certification vs. accreditation of an ambulatory surgery center: "There are many good reasons to become accredited. My personal belief is that accreditation helps us stay continually focused on quality. There is something to be said for being held accountable. I [also] believe that patients and physicians value an organization that is aligned with an accrediting body, and that this is one of many factors that play into their decision to come to our facility. Finally, more payers than ever before are looking for verification of accreditation. They are viewing this from the 'quality' standpoint as well."

Inside General Surgery Practice

General surgery: Things aren't always as they seem – A 35 percent increase in the number of female patients with abnormal mammograms prompted a general surgery practice to consider ways to reduce the time patients had to wait for an appointment.

Developing a heart surgery program requires a feasibility study that includes interviews with all health care professionals who could influence the program, a situational analysis of heart-surgery programs in the area, a community/environmental assessment and a financial analysis.

Through reprocessing single-use devices, surgeons are partnering with hospitals to save money for their practices and the health care system.

As major health insurance carriers adopted reimbursement levels based on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS), a group's surgical reimbursement decreased and reimbursement for cognitive (evaluation and management) services increased.

Surgical group gets better managed-care contracts simply by asking

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 .

General Surgery Resources

The HR Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices helps administrators and managers develop procedures and policies for managing staff and allocating resources. It also provides tips on creating an employee handbook.

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, second 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.

General Surgery

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.