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| Dear Friend,
“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” -- The Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
That's the subject of this Monday's blog post, The Inflation Tax. You can follow the link to read the post online, or just keep reading for the full story.
Just like hypertension, inflation is the silent killer, the hidden tax on your business, dreams, and desires.
Providers from physicians to ASCs celebrated when CMS’s final fee schedules for 2022 either weren’t cut as deeply as expected (an average reduction of 3.85% for physicians) or were increased slightly (2% for ASCs).
Yet, with 20% of the dollars in circulation having been created in 2020, the inevitable result is quickening inflation, a hidden tax on all concerned.
The general Consumer Price Index jumped up approximately 7% last year. But data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a 50% year over year increase in the cost of gasoline, food prices up 6.3%, and new car prices up close to 12% . . . if you’re lucky.
Unless you were prescient enough to have negotiated CPI increases into your payor agreements, costs may eat you alive while the inflation-indexed value of reimbursement shrinks. Combine that with labor shortages in the health care industry that are pushing salary expectations, often expressed as take it or leave it demands, many practices and facilities are slipping into the danger zone.
Even if you weren’t that perceptive, renegotiate up what you can now. Don’t let contracts auto-renew. Don’t sign whatever contracts come in the door. Don’t think that going into hospital employment or selling your facility to a hospital is anything more than a short-term solution to a much larger long-term problem. |
| | | Business Life in the Time of Coronavirus Mini-Series
The coronavirus crisis caused a short term economic crisis for many medical groups. Our mini-series shows you the way out. Plus, many of the concepts discussed are applicable during both good times and bad.
[If you haven't already seen them, follow this link to watch our entire series.] |
| | Watch Tuesday's video here, or just keep reading below for a revised, more polished version:
I want to talk with you today about a situation that I see often among physicians and other healthcare providers.
Due to your training and the sensitivity of what you do -- after all a mistake could cause a death -- leading to medical board discipline, medical staff discipline, malpractice lawsuits, and, potentially, career death. As a result, physicians and other healthcare providers have been so trained to be careful and to avoid errors in connection with their practice, that they translate it over to their business dealings.
Now, I’m not telling you to be rash in business dealings, but what I’m telling you is that you must learn how to move fast. When you see a deal that looks attractive you must jump on it.
I’m not saying you have to close on it immediately, but you have to jump on vetting the opportunity immediately. You must be able to decide to engage quickly, or to not engage quickly. It's that decision making that must be fast.
You can’t do all of your investigation, all of the dawdling (because that’s what it is) first, and then decide if you’re interested in pursuing the deal.
Money likes speed. It doesn’t like it when you’ve got one foot, maybe two, on the brakes.
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| | How to Deploy the Secret Sauce of Opportunistic Strategy
Webinar On Demand
They say that COVID-19 has changed the world, creating the "new normal." Many of your colleagues and many hospital administrators are running scared.
Others, leaders like you, know that crisis means opportunity.
Let me provide you with the strategic tools and insights that you need in order to seize opportunities, whether they’re in the context of your current business relationships, the expansion of your business activities, or the creation of new ventures.
You will learn:
•Defense as a defective default: It’s necessary, but not sufficient.
•Exploiting weakness: Drop the guilt and identify opportunity.
•Flat line negotiation is fatal: Understand its myths and limitations.
•Negotiation reality: Learn to identify and deploy on multiple planes to affect the outcome.
•Maneuver: Harness the power of maneuver, both in overall strategy and in specific negotiation strategy.
Others see a crisis and freeze in fear. Learn how to see the opportunities and obtain the tools to increase your odds of obtaining them.
The price to attend is $479. The cost of not attending is astronomical. |
| | | Wednesday - There's an App for That HIPAA Violation - Medical Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
I recently read a post on someone's blog in which the author addressed the question of using Amazon's Alexa in an operating room. I used to think that there was no such thing as a stupid question, but now I have to reconsider.
On the other hand, are you already carrying a little spy into the operating room or the exam room or into listening range of other patient encounters or, for those of you in the billing business, into an office in which PHI is discussed?
No, I'm not referring to cell phones themselves as little listening devices, although I'm not 100% sure that it's not an urban myth that your iPhone or android device always keeps its mic open.
Even if you put that notion into the category of foil hat wearing crazies, there is a related, and all too true, issue of apps on those devices maintaining open mics.
Take, for example, the 2017 report by the New York Times that more than 250 smartphone game apps utilize software from a company called Alphonso that listens to audio in TV ads and shows. The software is sophisticated enough to listen in even when the app is running in the background and the phone is in your pocket.
I'm not picking on Alphonso and the company states that it doesn't record voice discussions, but it stretches the imagination to think that there is not a stream of data that has been backed up somewhere in order to mine it for television ad data that doesn't also contain, and can't be mined for, the rest of the audio information.
Smartphones (are supposed to) allow an app access to the mic only if the user permits it. But do you really know what access you've granted to each of your apps? Sure you do! But what about the apps of your colleagues, your partners, your employees?
Cyber criminals pay far more for health data than for credit card or banking information because it's far more complete in terms of recreating a stolen identity. Don't inadvertently help them out while exposing yourself to, potentially, tens of thousands of HIPAA violations. |
| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
You're probably familiar, if not personally, then at least conceptually, with the notion of "F.U. money" - having enough money that you can simply walk away. That concept, whether you have the money or not, applies directly to your negotiation strategy. Have you ever simply stood up and walked away from the negotiating table, saying to your teammates, "let's go, we're done here"? As I've espoused many times before, for example, see here and here (and, by the way, it's the subject of my webinar, How to Deploy the Secret Sauce of Opportunistic Strategy) negotiation is far, far more than what takes place at a negotiating table. But the overall ability to walk from a deal requires either the actual ability to walk away from the deal because you don't actually need it, or the guts, strategic thinking, and the ability to project your power to do the same, even if it's your only deal, the one that you need to survive as a business. True power in any negotiation is the ability to project that you do not need the deal, even if that "not needing" is not true. That power can be developed multiple ways. It can be developed in the sense of "F.U. money," by the size of your bank account. It can be developed even if you don't have enough money to make the initial deposit into a bank account by having a high enough "deposit" of confidence that you can project the same power to the opposite party. You want a concrete example? OK. I've guided clients through a strategic process whereby start-up physician groups have adopted and implemented a position against large healthcare systems that we would negotiate from our documents, from our position, and have achieved tremendous results. The secret? Besides the proprietary strategy, those clients were coached on having supreme confidence in themselves and on the strategy, and on how to project their power through their demonstrated willingness to walk away. They had the willingness to invest in themselves by controlling the drafting of the documents - they knew that sitting back, pinching pennies, and waiting for the opposite party's documents was a fool's position, one that would have put them at a disadvantage before the first shot was fired. Develop and project power. |
| | | Calibrate Your Compass
Read our exclusive RedPaper to guide you through this evolving situation.
The coronavirus crisis caused a short-term economic crisis for many medical groups. Our RedPaper shows you the way out. Plus, many of the concepts discussed are applicable during both good times and bad.
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| | Help Us Help You With Helpful Content
What tailored content would you most like to see during this
time? How can we focus on solutions to your most pressing strategic concerns?
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| | | | We all hear, and most of us say, that the pace of change in healthcare is quickening. That means that the pace of required decision-making is increasing, too. Unless, that is, you want to take the “default” route. That’s the one is which you let someone else make the decisions that impact you; you’re just along for the ride. Of course, playing a bit part in scripting your own future isn’t the smart route to stardom. But despite your own best intentions, perhaps it’s your medical group’s governance structure that’s holding you back.
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| In fact, it’s very likely that the problem is systemic. The Medical Group Governance Matrix introduces a simple four-quadrant diagnostic tool to help you find out. It then shows you how to use that tool to build your better, more profitable future. Get your free copy Free.
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| | | | Whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you and your business:
1. Download a copy of The Success Prescription. My book, The Success Prescription provides you with a framework for thinking about your success. Download a copy of The Success Prescription here.
2. Be a guest on “Wisdom. Applied. Podcast.” Although most of my podcasts involve me addressing an important point for your success, I’m always looking for guests who’d like to be interviewed about their personal and professional achievements and the lessons learned. Email me if you’re interested in participating.
3. Book me to speak to your group or organization. I’ve spoken at dozens of medical group, healthcare organization, university-sponsored, and private events on many topics such as The Impending Death of Hospitals, the strategic use of OIG Advisory Opinions, medical group governance, and succeeding at negotiations. For more information about a custom presentation for you, drop us a line.
4. If You’re Not Yet a Client, Engage Me to Represent You. If you’re interested in increasing your profit and managing your risk of loss, email me to connect directly. |
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