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| Dear Friend,
House of cards. No, not the TV show, but the foundation on which many medical groups are built.
You’re all set to embark on some new project or endeavor, such as expanding the scope of your medical group’s operations to the neighboring community, or even to a site hundreds of miles away. Great. These are the type of projects that engender excitement, commitment, and passion, as well as bring profit.
But can you pull it off if your practice is built as a metaphorical house of cards? Not a house built on flimflam, but one built of negligence or perhaps indifference, or one bending too far to the will of the crowd.
Growing up in Southern California, I’d see the cliffs rising near vertically above Pacific Coast Highway, running from Santa Monica up towards Pacific Palisades, a towering, sheer face of dirt that year after year, day after day, was slowly giving way. The beautiful homes perched on top were inevitably headed for the slow lane of the highway below.
That’s a perfect metaphor for the false belief that there’s a strong foundation holding up the structure of your group. In reality, the truth can be much different.
Consider the group that discovers but it wasn’t actually formed as a medical corporation 34 years ago; it was formed as a general business corporation and is engaged in an illegal business operation.
Consider the group with a defective governance system, such as those with fully collaborative decision-making structures.
These and other defects put your group on the same footing as what was once a $20 million mansion, now about to slide over a cliff.
The fortunate thing for medical group leaders, and where the analogy breaks down, is that it’s far easier to correct foundational defects in medical group structure, than it is to shore up a house headed down a 200 foot cliff.
Start with a structural audit. |
| | | 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.] |
| | Tuesday - Do You Know Why You Must Plan For the Worst?
Watch Tuesday's video here, or just keep reading below for a revised, more polished transcript:
I want to talk to you today about a common mistake that many leaders make, whether we're talking about medical group leaders or facility leaders. It's that they tend to plan for the best.
They think like the forecasts about stocks -- that straight 45-degree upward line -- that everything is getting better. And, they ignore the mice type warning that past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There's the notion that everything is going to continue to get bigger, better, or at least to stay the same.
But we know that's not necessarily true, right?
Anyone who has been alive over the last 6 months or so knows that even when a year starts out fantastic, it might not end up continuing like that.
So rather, in these times, these coronavirus economic times, or in others, even in times that are seemingly glowing, it's far wiser to plan for the worst, but to hope for the best.
In other words, as you're making your business plans, you should always have an eye on what could go wrong. How might you fix that? How you might prevent that? As opposed to fooling yourself that everything is always going to be rosy.
Now, I am not saying that you should be a pessimist and actually think that things are going to be worse. But you have to plan as if they are going to be. Then you will pleasantly surprise yourself.
This comes in terms of how you deal with financial matters, how you deal with hiring, how you deal with firing, your overall viewpoint, your weltanschauung on the future of your business, on the future of your practice.
Don’t fall prey to more of the same, more of the better, that it will always be better tomorrow.
Yes, we hope it might be.
But if it isn’t, wouldn’t it have been better if you had planned for that well in advance?
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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 - Hospital Performs Surgery On Itself and Cuts Off More Than Half Its Beds
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
According to Karen Teitelbaum, President and CEO of Sinai Health System, “all hospitals are looking at how to transform care delivery and responsibly allocate resources to address changing patient needs.”
But what if patients no longer need you, or, at least, not as much of you?
Well, for Sinai, and, in particular, its Holy Cross Hospital located in Chicago’s Marquette Park neighborhood, it means cutting the number of licensed beds from 264 to under 110, in addition to what’s being billed as a temporary suspension of OB/GYN services.
The moves are a tourniquet to staunch the loss of financial blood, more than $2,000,000.00 a month, from the facility.
Pursuant to the health system’s press release, Sinai is looking at creative opportunities to market and lease space at Holy Cross to other providers offering acute care services.
Perhaps that presents an interesting opportunity, but query how smart it is to hitch one’s future to a sinking ship, especially when freestanding alternatives divorced from health system bureaucracy and the regulatory issues of operating a for-profit venture within the realm of a not-for-profit facility abound. [Author’s note: I would normally refer to Holy Cross as a “non-taxpaying” venture, not a “not-for-profit,” but at a $2,000,000.00 a month loss, my guess is that “not-for-profit” is a better descriptor.]
Of course, miracles happen and perhaps Ms. Teitelbaum and her team will right the ship. I just wouldn’t bet on it.
The Holy Cross story, together with that of the incredibly shrinking hospital (three floors lopped off of a five story hospital), the story of the miniaturized hospital (865 beds to 70), and the story of the completely bedless hospital are simply stops along the way to what I describe as The Impending Death of Hospitals. If you haven’t yet read my book by that title, follow the link to download your complimentary copy, or visit Amazon to buy yours in print.
Some people refuse to read the news because it’s almost always bad, like the stories about the fate befalling hospitals. However, most bad news contains the kernel of opportunity for someone else. Why not make it for you? |
| | Thursday - Free Stay Out of Jail Pass |
| Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
As my gift to you, here's a free stay out of jail pass. But it does require a bit of effort on your part. Instructions Step 1: Read this short post. Step 2: Print it out and trim off extra margins. Step 3: Fold it so that it fits into your wallet. Step 4: Pull it out and reread it once a week or more often, if needed. *** The chance to get a little something back, a vig, a taste, a cut. It's a story nearly as old as time itself, but not normally the story one tells oneself. Then, it's usually a "business deal". Perhaps that's the story that the surgeons who did business with Impartial Medical Experts, LLC (“IME”), told themselves. The United States government is telling a different story, one that they are alleging in intervening in two whistleblower lawsuits in Massachusetts. In that intervention, the government’s complaint centers around defendant Kingsley Chin, M.D., described as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of defendant SpineFrontier, a spine device manufacturer. The complaint alleges that Dr. Chin is also the founder and principal owner of defendants KIC Management Group Inc. and KICVentures LLC, which own and operate defendant SpineFrontier and defendant IME of which defendant Vanessa Dudley, Dr. Chin’s wife, was the sole employee. According to the complaint, the defendants paid spine surgeons over $8 million in sham “consulting” payments ostensibly for product evaluations, when in fact the payments were for use of SpineFrontier devices. The government claims that the “consulting” spine surgeons were generally paid $500 for a cervical procedure, and $1,000 for a lumbar procedure — but only if the surgeon used SpineFrontier devices — and that the spine surgeons often performed little or no work beyond implanting the devices, for which they were separately paid by carriers, including federal health care programs. It’s also alleged that the defendants didn’t systematically collect or use feedback from the “consultants” and paid them even when they had provided no feedback at all. Surgeons allegedly could “consult” on SpineFrontier devices in this manner an unlimited number of times so long as they continued using the SpineFrontier product in surgery. Although the complaint states the names of multiple spine surgeons, none are named as defendants in the action. It's likely that the government will pursue those physicians individually, perhaps criminally, as the story unfolds. And that's the benefit of keeping this short but sad story in your wallet. Pull it out whenever anyone related to your practice offers to pay you for something. Yes, something as in anything. Remind yourself that the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”) prohibits offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration to induce referrals of items or services covered by Medicare, TRICARE, and other federally funded programs. Remind yourself that the AKS doesn't simply support False Claims Act civil claims; it’s a criminal statute, the violation of which leads to actual jail time and large fines. Remind yourself that, as you read this today and three weeks from today when you remember to pull it out again, that physicians like you are sitting in their cells today and that you don't want to join them. Treat this clipping as a get out of jail free card and indeed it will be. Or, at least, for slightly more, contact me at markweiss@weisspc.com before you take those consulting fees or accept rent for that closet, or let your spouse take that part-time position as a manufacturer’s rep. Put this in your wallet. Now. |
| | | 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 here.
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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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