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| Dear Friend,
Your future.
I’m usually urging people to think strategically in order to have bigger plans for their future — for their personal future and their business future.
Part of this is a projection of the way I think. But it’s also based on observation.
Over the years of my career, before I began devoting it exclusively to healthcare clients, healthcare businesses, facilities and physician groups, I did a lot of M&A work outside of healthcare as well as within healthcare.
My work touched on diverse types of businesses, including, for example, entertainment businesses, furniture businesses, import businesses, manufacturing businesses, and trucking businesses.
Many of the entrepreneurs that had founded these businesses were either the sole or majority shareholder. And after they sold, they tended to die soon. They sort of withered away.
I think a big part of that is because they no longer had a bigger future. They had always been driven by achieving a goal, and then, in their minds, their final goal had been achieved.
Many physicians have a final goal: the goal of retirement.
We've talked about this before; it's what I call the "physician expiration date" mentality. To me, when Dr. X says that he "has 5 years left," it sounds like he's describing his release date from prison.
But once “retired,” without a goal or something to which to look forward, many people lose their purpose, their reason, for living.
What's your next goal? What's your next big goal?
How important is that goal to you, not just for your financial future, or for your business future; how important is that goal for your own existence? |
| | | 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.] |
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Watch Tuesday's video here, or just keep reading below for a revised, more polished transcript:
I want to talk with you today about the power
of transformation.
Most business relationships that we enter into in our life are transactional. I want to buy that car. I want to sell my house.
Those relationships have the transaction as the focus.
And once that transaction is complete, the relationship is over. In other words, there is, at the closing, a parting of the ways.
Other sorts of relationships, for example, the standard concept of an exclusive contract between, for example, a radiology group and a hospital, involve creating a relationship that continues past the closing. Instead of being the end, the closing is the start of the term. It's not like the delivery of the car, which is transactional. It's the beginning of a relationship.
But query at the same time, when you're selling that hospital on the creation of a relationship, whether you also go to the next level, being not simply the creation of a relationship between your group and the facility, but the creation of a transformation for the benefit of the facility.
What are you bringing to the facility that will change it, that is, will transform it for the better, as a result of entering into the relationship with you?
That's a far more powerful selling proposition. It's uses a more powerful set of actions to cement the relationship between your group and the facility. It also requires another way of thinking.
It's not just a continuation of providing coverage from “x” hour to “y” hour five-days a week, and a slightly different schedule on the weekends. Rather, it's a series of interactions that are aimed at improving the facility so dramatically that their position is forever changed and continues to improve and evolve. If you can do that, they really have no logical choice but to continue to do business with you, moving into the future.
So, think about that: Transaction. Relationship. Transformation.
What would you rather obtain? What would you rather provide in order to maintain the longest possible profitable business relationship? |
| | 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. |
| | | "A Laptop! A Laptop! My Kingdom For a Laptop!" - Medical Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
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| What’s a laptop cost? How about $1,040,000? Nope, it’s not the world’s first quantum computing MacBook. It’s just a regular old one. Heck, it’s even used!
And therein lies the problem.
That’s the price that Rhode Island based non-profit, Lifespan Health System Affiliated Covered Entity (“Lifespan”) agreed to pay the government as the penalty for the theft of a single stolen laptop that might have contained unencrypted PHI to which the thieves had access.
The story started out on a Saturday like many others. A hospital employee parked in a public lot. But then, thieves broke into the parked vehicle and stole, among other things, a MacBook laptop used by the employee for work. The laptop was never seen again. Neither were the thieves.
Now here comes the “might have, sort of” part, the part that should really scare you. There doesn’t appear to be any actual evidence that anyone illegally accessed PHI. Nor, for purposes of HIPAA violation, does there have to be.
Upon investigation, it was determined that the employee’s work emails might have been cached in a file on the device’s hard drive, and that the thieves “had access to” patient names, medical record numbers, demographic information, including partial address information, and the name of one or more medications that were prescribed or administered to patients.
Despite all of those might haves, the loss of the laptop constituted a HIPAA breach because the PHI on that single MacBook was not encrypted.
According to a press release issued on July 27, 2020, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ agency charged with HIPAA enforcement, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”), upon investigation, it was determined that there was systematic noncompliance with the HIPAA Rules within Lifespan. Among the noncompliance was the failure to encrypt ePHI on laptops after Lifespan determined that it was reasonable and appropriate to do so. The investigation also revealed a lack of device and media controls.
Mobile devices, from laptops to cell phones, are stolen every day. Cars containing those devices, even ones locked “securely,” or so we think, in their trunks, are broken into or themselves stolen every day. Other such devices are simply misplaced.
That’s why ePHA on those devices must be encrypted.
The settlement highlights the fact that simply having a HIPAA compliance plan, even one that requires encryption, is worthless, if it is not enforced, and it is less than worthless if you have a plan that you know if not being complied with and you do nothing about it.
The sad story also highlights the issue of the security of any PHI, electronic or on paper, that is exposed to theft, or even loss, in transit, whether the transit is via a car, a pocket, or a briefcase.
In addition to the $1,040,000 payment, Lifespan entered into an agreement with the government requiring a corrective action plan including two years of monitoring.
For help with both crafting your compliance plan and creating an actual working compliance program, email me now. I can guarantee that it will cost you less than $1,040,000, plus a corrective action plan, plus attorneys fees, plus bad publicity, plus exposure to other potential liability.
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| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
Many medical group leaders come to me for help when they’ve got a “problem” and they’re looking for a solution.
Oftentimes, they think that the solution lies outside of the problem.
But I want you to think about things a different way: Most problems, maybe even all problems, are themselves the kernel of the solution.
Let’s take an example. Currently, many medical group leaders are looking for the cure for the “cure” for surprise medical billing. It's a big issue for many hospital-based physician group clients.
They're facing threats of being thrown out-of-network and relegated to new out-of-network payment schemes. Those schemes are, in essence, cram-down rules imposed by the bureaucratic “cures” for surprise medical billing.
They’re also being forced to feel the pressure of reduced “offers” of reimbursement from those payors still willing to contract. The implied, and sometimes vociferously stated, threat is that unless the group agrees to work for peanuts, their only other choice is to work out-of-network pursuant to a sham payment methodology in which they'll be paid in metaphorical peanut shells.
It's win-win for the payors. Higher reimbursed groups are either pressured to work for less or are tossed out-of-network. And, by reducing their average in-network rates, they'll eventually lower what they are forced to pay the groups pushed out-of-network under the arbitration system mandated by surprise medical billing statutes or regulations.
Faced with those problems, many medical group leaders seek to know how to deal with that arbitration system.
But query whether the problem isn’t something different. Instead of seeing it as in-network versus out-of-network, perhaps the problem is the lack of control over patients and the ultimate means of funding patient care. With that mindset, perhaps there are other ways (there are!) to bypass carriers, or to turn the legislation and regulations inside out to make what was a problem for physicians, a problem for payors.
Think about problems a different way. Think about solutions from other industries to similar problems and how they’ve played out. Think about whether you want to “game the system.”
There are ways to accomplish far more than you think. But that means you’ve got to look at things differently and invest in yourself by obtaining help.
If you’re not willing to do those things, consider shutting down your business, it might be cheaper.
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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 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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