| View this email online if it doesn't display correctly |
| |
|
|
| |
| Dear Friend,
Did you know that certain antitrust law violations are crimes? A medical group leader might be finding out the hard way; he was just indicted.
It’s a crime, a violation of antitrust law, to conspire to allocate a market, thus driving up price. It’s particularly egregious when the conspiracy involves the market for medical care for cancer treatment.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the coordinated filing
of a one-count felony charge against Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute LLC (“FCS”), an oncology group headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, and a deferred
prosecution agreement with FCS whereby it agreed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty,
the statutory maximum.
Underlying the charge were allegations that FCS participated in a criminal antitrust conspiracy with a competing oncology group whereby the groups agreed not to compete to provide chemotherapy and radiation treatments to cancer patients. The allegations were that the conspiracy allocated chemotherapy treatments to FCS, and radiation treatments to a competing oncology group, such that FCS was illegally allowed to operate with minimal competition in Southwest Florida; thereby limiting valuable integrated care options and choices for cancer patients.
The deferred prosecution agreement includes FCS’s agreement not to enforce any non-compete provisions with its current or former oncologists or other employees who open or join an oncology practice in Southwest Florida. And, it requires FCS to cooperate fully with the government’s ongoing investigation.
As a likely result of that cooperation, the DOJ announced on September 24, 2020, the return of a grand jury indictment against FCS’s founder and former president, William Harwin, M.D., for his alleged participation in the antitrust conspiracy. It must be noted that an indictment is a set of allegations, not a conviction.
If proven guilty, Dr. Harwin could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and a
$1 million fine.
Entities might enter into an illegal arrangement and eventually suffer both the criminal
and civil prosecution consequences. But that's not the end of the story: Government investigations, prosecutions, and convictions can, and do, reach through to the
individuals involved.
|
| | | 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 transcript:
Let's talk about what negotiating provisions in a written agreement can cost you. We can use an employment agreement as an example.
So, let's say that you're the leader of an orthopedic surgery group. You're recruiting a new associate physician to your group, someone you really want.
You send the physician what you claim is your form agreement. The recruit replies saying, well, everything's fine, the compensation is okay, but I want 60 days' notice in connection with without cause termination, not the 30 days' notice set out in your standard agreement. Or, this person wants the notice provision to not permit notice by U.S. Mail, because it never arrives on time (or in some cases never arrives). He or she wants notice by FedEx.
What does it actually cost you to give up on those points?
The answer is, basically nothing.
I know! I know! With my lawyer hat on, there is a difference between deciding to terminate someone without cause and giving them 30 days' notice (“Goodbye! Get out of here!”) versus 60 days or 90 days.
But, in reality, how many times has that actually made a true difference in a client's business?
In 40 years, I can't tell you it's happened once.
There are some things that cost so little to change, it would be silly not to change them. Because you gain more in the relationship.
In this case, you want to recruit that physician. You're not giving up anything other than a fake amount of pride.
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. The same rule, the same little trite saying is perfectly applicable to many provisions in a contract.
Think about how easy you could make it to accomplish your goal by actually making it easy for someone to sign that agreement.
|
| | 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. |
| | | | While at a business lunch this past Friday, I couldn't help but notice that the waiters and waitresses at the fancy restaurant were wearing uniforms almost identical to those I wore as a cook at Magic Mountain during the summer of 1976. A top with vertical earth tone stripes over gray pants.
What uniforms are worn by your staff, employees or colleagues? Green scrubs? Dark pinstripe suits? Light khaki pants, blue shirts, and white lab coats?
Uniforms send a message to others. Witness the quintessential example: the police officer. Even security guards and TSA workers don faux police uniforms with iron-on badges to manipulate people into a high degree of compliance.
But a uniform can create tainted uniformity among its wearers, uniformity of thinking and uniformity of action.
Uniformity is a form of compliance imposed on the uniform wearer, too. "You'll wear this uniform because we told you to." Or, even more tribal, "We wear this uniform because that's what we wear."
But uniforms mask individuality and comparison. Just as no two police officers are alike, so too, none of the physicians in your group are identical. Yet, in healthcare, uniforms play no small role in that fact that many refer to their wearers as "providers," and that some claim that providers can easily be replaced, presumably by someone else in scrubs or in khakis, blue shirt, and a lab coat.
How then, do you achieve the balance between the message sent to third parties, which itself must be modulated, and the message sent to your staff?
I don't have the answer. I have the question, which I've now gifted to you.
Certainly, in the context of last Friday's restaurant, the uniform played a role in creating an atmosphere supporting the price point. In the glassed-in kitchen at Magic Mountain, it created the impression that an 18 year-old knew something about food handling safety. Those are not too different from the sorts of messages sent by scrubs or lab coats or blue pinstripe suits.
Yet there's a danger in uniformity in areas requiring creativity or higher-order
decision-making. "We always do it this way," or "That's not my role," or "Stop, doctor,
that's the wrong leg!"
The chef at that restaurant was wearing a chef-like jacket over jeans and black cowboy boots. He'd never signal that he's just like anyone else.
|
| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
If you participated in the live or on-demand version of the How to Deploy the Secret Sauce of Opportunistic Strategy webinar, which is a prerequisite to participation in the Strategy Working Group Program, then nothing I'm going to describe below will shock you. In fact, it will make you smile. (If you haven't done that initial work, you can start by accessing the on-demand webinar here.)
***
The five orthopedic surgeons who dissolved their private practice in 2016 to become employees of Aspen Valley Hospital (“AVH”) are out of jobs, maybe permanently, in their little slice of what was a mountain paradise.The majority of the seven surgeons from the current outside ortho group practicing at AVH, OrthoAspen, will soon be in the same avalanche, at least as to practice at the AVH location. And The Steadman Clinic will have taken a giant opportunistic leap forward. It appears that Steadman executed on one of the strategies explored in the How to Deploy the Secret Sauce of Opportunistic Strategy webinar and to be minutely dissected in the Working Group program: “buying” a practice without paying a cent. The public reaction (for example, see this article in the Aspen Times) is one of shock. Why wouldn't Steadman simply hire all of the currently AVH-based orthopedic surgeons? The public, and I'd guess, the soon to be unemployed OrthoAspen surgeons, apparently misunderstood what the word “partnership” means in the healthcare deal context.
Earlier this year, AVH’s CEO was reported to have said that AVH thought it wise for Steadman and OrthoAspen to be strategic partners instead of operating as separate entities.
But in the real world context of opportunistic action, “partnership” is a euphemism for “acquired” or "controlled." As in, "sure, we're your partner, but you work for us, I mean,
if we let you work for us."
Steadman understood this. AVH understood this. One can only wonder what
OrthoAspen thought.
Apparently, no one consulted the hospital employed doctors because, well, no one had to.
[To become an inner Steadman (and not an inner OrthoApen), start by accessing the on-demand webinar here.] |
| | | 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.
|
| | 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?
|
| | | | 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.
|
|
|
| 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.
|
| | | | | | 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. |
|
|
