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| Dear Friend,
This past Monday, we ran our annual blog post, Memorial Day 2022. Here it is in its entirety, a short bunch of words encouraging a large dose of reflection, whether on Memorial Day or any day:
We analogize business to war. Litigation to battle. Negotiation to struggle.
We tend to forget that our ability to engage in analogies while safely ensconced in our homes and offices is due in large part to those who gave their lives in real war, in real battle, in real struggle.
Let’s remember.
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| | | 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:
Let’s talk about preparing your business or your practice for sale.
People generally think about remodeling portions of their house and fixing up any obvious defects when it is time to sell. But many people don’t think about doing the same thing in connection with a sale of a medical group or a healthcare facility.
Why not? After all, the same rules apply.
First of all, you want to make your business as attractive as possible to a buyer. If there are potential problems with compliance, you want to clean them up. If there are potential problems with disruptive physicians, you want to clean them up. If there are problems with collections, you definitely want to clean them up. If there are problems with your staffing, in terms of right-sizing your practice, whether these people are disruptive or not, you’ll want to take care of that, too.
You want to do whatever you can do to make your business as shiny and successful and as attractive as possible to attract a buyer.
After all, buyers are going to do their own due diligence. So you want to catch and correct problems before a potential buyer does. If the buyer catches them first, it will catch you off guard and, I guarantee you, push down the purchase price.
If you’d spend time and money fixing up your house before putting it up for sale, why wouldn’t you do the same thing for something that’s in all likelihood even more important to you – your practice or your business?
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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. |
| | | | | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
To paraphrase William Shakespeare, a rose by any other name might just be fraud.
Are marketing agreements legal? What about management or “administrative services” agreements? How about agreements for scheduling? Surely, those type of arrangements can’t send you to prison!
Indeed, they can if they’re just window dressing for underlying fraud.
And, in the case of Sam Sarkis Solakyan, the CEO California based Vital Imaging, Inc. and San Diego MRI Institute, they can send you to prison for 5 years.
An X-Ray View
As the aftermath of his conviction at trial in July, 2021, Solakyan and was sentenced on January 28, 2022, to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $27,937,175 in restitution to victim insurance companies. The underlying scheme submitted more than $250 million in fraudulent claims, the vast majority for MRIs that weren’t medically necessary, through the California Workers Compensation system for medical services procured through bribes and kickbacks to physicians and others. He's also been barred from working in the healthcare and workers compensation industries during the three years of supervised release that's to follow his imprisonment.
Solakyan, through Vital Imaging, San Diego MRI Institute, and other companies, operated diagnostic imaging facilities from the Bay Area in the north to San Diego in the South.
Convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud and health care fraud, and 11 counts of honest services mail fraud, Solakyan conspired with physicians and others in a scheme in which the doctors were paid bribes and kickbacks in exchange for referral of Workers Compensation patients. Some of the illegal remuneration was in cash and some was in the form of a “cross referral” scheme in which the participants referred patients to one another.
So-called “recruiters” working for the Solakyan entities required physicians to refer a minimum number of patients to receive cross referrals.
And, getting back to the naïve questions at the top of this post, the participants in the conspiracy obscured the true nature of the financial relationships by entering into sham agreements for “marketing”, “administrative services”, and “scheduling”, when the arrangements were really for kickbacks and bribes.
In addition to Solakyan: Chiropractor Steven Rigler pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and was sentenced to a 6-month federal prison term. Fermin Iglesias, who was the CEO of various scheduling companies, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and health care fraud, and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Co-conspirator Carlos Arguello was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
What You Really Need to Know
- Just because an arrangement looks on paper like it’s a management type agreement doesn’t effectively cover up an illegal scheme any more than a beach towel covers up an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
- The underlying scheme, not the ink on the paper, governs legality versus illegality.
- Kickbacks and bribes don’t have to be in dollars. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours (cross referral schemes) are illegal remuneration, too.
- A state-law scheme (e.g., worker’s comp) quickly becomes a federal offense via the use of the mail or other means of interstate communication (e.g., a fax machine, a cell phone, a text message).
- Insurance companies have fraud department stacked to the rafters with former criminal investigators and they love to use the feds to pressure fraudsters and to do the collection work (restitution) for them.
- A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a papered-up scheme actually smells like fraud.
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| | | 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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