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| Dear Friend,
How hard is it to lose a hospital?
Chances are, you've lost your keys and maybe even your wallet. But have you ever lost
a hospital?
The Chicago area has. In fact, according to a recent news report, it's about to lose its 14th one since 2000.
Of course, they didn't really lose them, the hospitals closed.
Now pending closure is Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, located, as were eight of the others, in the city of Chicago itself.
About to end its 170 year streak, the almost 300 bed facility has been losing $4 million a month. Its owner, Trinity Health, a system based in Livonia, Michigan, tried to sell the facility (no luck) and they tried to hook it up with three other Chicago hospitals to create a new health system (no luck).
It seems that it would have been cheaper to pay someone to take it off their hands. Maybe they tried that, too.
So, what’s this mean for you?
1. The hospital business is becoming increasingly problematic. CMS and insurers want to push any surgical case that can be done on an outpatient basis to an ASC, and patients are more than happy about the trend. What’s left for the hospital, with the exclusion of the very large quaternary/tertiary care facilities, is a shadow of their former business.
2. If you really want to get into the hospital business, they can be had for a song, or for a payment from the seller.
3. It’s become even more unsafe to base your medical practice on an affiliation with one hospital. No hospital, no practice.
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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 transcript:
I want to talk to you about negotiation and pace. We call it time. But not like time on a watch, which just ticks at the same speed, but the notion of a fast transient -- the idea of mixing up speed in negotiation.
I’ve often spoken about the OODA loop – John Boyd’s strategy breakthrough. It’s a process which you iterate through, observing, orienting, deciding, and acting, and then spinning through that loop faster and faster in order to gain an advantage over your opponent. It’s applicable whether the opponent is in a fighter jet, where the strategy originated, or whether the opponent is on the other side of the negotiating table.
A huge part of the thinking behind the OODA loop is not related to the spinning of the loop itself, in other words, the thinking process, but to the changing of pace in terms of the
action step.
One of the important things in terms of a fighter jet is the notion of maneuverability, not simply how fast you can go, straight ahead. “Faster speed is always better” was the countervailing thinking when Boyd developed his concept of the OODA loop. Instead, as Boyd revealed, what’s required is the ability to slow down, speed up, turn left, turn right, or climb and descend. So how quickly can you make those transients?
The same thing happens in connection with a negotiation. There are some people who just want to get it over with, when slowing down might put more pressure on the other side, or could enable you to get support from your group in the decision you’re making. Speeding up on the other hand, might take the other side completely off guard.
So, you don’t simply want to rush to get a contract negotiated, nor do you want to always take your time to put pressure on the other side if you think they’re up against some deadline.
Consider time as another element, tool, or dimension to be used in every negotiation. Speed it up when it is in your favor; slow it down when it’s not (or when slowing interferes with your opponent), or even stop.
Time and timing are far more than simply wanting to get the deal done, now. |
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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 - Super Bowl Ads and Medical Group Leaders - Medical
Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
I just read that a 30 second spot during this year’s Super Bowl sold for around $4.5 million.
Super Bowl commercials garner all sorts of buzz for being “creative,” but creativity isn’t selling. If you thought it was, just ask RadioShack how it turned out for them: Last year their Super Bowl commercial was feted as extremely creative. This year, according to the Wall Street Journal, they are just or a day or so away from filing bankruptcy.
The problem is confusion of purpose and that’s where this lesson applies to you and to other medical group leaders.
The purpose of business is to gain customers, not to be the most “creative” simply for creativity’s sake. In other words, having ad agencies or the folks who sell ads (television networks, newspapers, magazines, and radio stations) tell you that your advertisement is the most wonderfully creative thing they've ever seen is not the same as causing Ms. Selma Smith of South San Francisco to buy a six pack of Bud.
According to Time.com, Anheuser-Busch’s 2014 Super Bowl ad, “Puppy Love," was voted the top commercial during the game by viewers on Hulu, earned the top spot on USA Today’s Ad Meter, and dominated the other Super Bowl ads on YouTube.
Gee, that’s great. But they apparently put very little Bud in anyone’s fridge: Budweiser sales are down around 50% from 10 years ago.
The purpose of your business is to gain patients and that often means satisfying other customers, too (hospitals, other facilities, and referral sources) in order to have access to those patients. Deliver what those customers want. That’s delivering value.
Don’t do what your competitors are doing just because they’re doing it or because you might get some award for it.
Clydesdales and puppies might bring tears to your eyes but they don’t bring Bud to your lips.
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| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
The tides of healthcare ebb and flow like the width of men's ties and the political affiliation of Michael Bloomberg. Seemingly set with a huge population of baby boomers needing their wares to remain healthy or, metaphorically speaking, to "come in for a soft landing," and spurred on by politicians who thought they were anointed to nudge us, hospital systems grew rapaciously. But now the tide's going out. A bit more than a week ago, the Mayo Clinic Health System announced that it was shuttering a hospital and two related clinics located in Springfield and Lamberton, Minnesota. Among the multiple factors that Mayo cited for the shutdown were the growth in other healthcare options and their inability to recruit physicians. Seemingly, though, a dose of mismanagement and staff model thinking contributed to the mess: The hospital used its staff of emergency department providers to care for hospitalized patients. Apparently it took them too long to realize that emergency medicine physicians aren't internists or hospitalists. According to a press release, James Hebl, M.D., Mayo’s regional vice president, said that “the skills required for each can be vastly different.” (You can't make this stuff up.) The story is another breadcrumb on the trail of the Impending Death of Hospitals. For physicians, it leads to the conclusion that: 1. There is no longer safety in hospital employment. 2. That contracted medical groups, especially hospital-based groups such as anesthesiologists and radiologists, can't be dependent upon any single hospital or single hospital system relationship. 3. That there is huge opportunity in alternatives to hospitals, such as ASCs and MOCs™, physician-owned Massive Outpatient Clinics™. |
| | | 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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