Categories

Tag: Outpatient

Is Healthcare a Business?

flying cadeuciiIn the United States, the question has been asked time and again but never satisfactorily answered. By virtue of publically financed healthcare systems, the rest of the developed world has decided, to a greater or lesser extent, that medicine and healthcare are not pure businesses—that citizens have a right to care, even when they can’t pay all associated costs.

It’s starting to look like Americans won’t be able to duck the question for much longer.

In the last year, the profitability of U.S. hospitals eroded for the first time since the Great Recession, pushing some closer to and others over the solvency precipice. Revenues are down and costs are up.  And these issues appear systemic and entrenched, giving rise to a series of important and relevant questions: How can hospitals adapt?  If they do, will they still survive? And, do we as a nation think it’s important to make hospitals accessible, even if they lose money?

As recently reported in the New York Timesanalysis by Moody’s Investors Service shows that this year nonprofit hospitals had their worst financial performance since the Great Recession. Among the 383 hospitals studied, revenue growth dipped from a 7 percent average to 3.9 percent on declining admissions.  For the last two years, expenses have grown faster than revenues, and fully one quarter of all hospitals are operating at a loss.

In a word, Moody’s describes the situation as “unsustainable” because it is the product of what look like enduring realities:

  1. Private insurers did not increase payments to hospitals.
  2. Medicare reduced payments due to federal budget cuts.
  3. Demand for inpatient services declined as outpatient care options rose.
  4. Retail outpatient options now compete with hospital clinics.
  5. Patients with higher copays and deductibles chose not to seek care.
  6. Hospitals are buying up physician practices.
  7. The costs of electronic medical record systems are impacting the bottom line.

Continue reading…

One Woman Brand: How one Doctor Started Over Again With a New Practice, a New Specialty and a Great New Outlook on Life

A little over a year ago, I found myself burning out and realized that my worklife was unsustainable.

I’d been working at an FQHC clinic, and had become the site’s medical director a few months before. I was practicing as a primary care doc, trying to improve our clinical workflows, problem-solving around the new e-prescribing system, helping plan the agency’s transition from paper charts to electronic charts, and working on our housecalls and geriatrics programs.

All of this was supposed to be a 50% position — plus 5% paid time for follow-up — because I had two young children that I wanted to have some time for, and was also working one day/week for a caregiving website (Caring.com).

Needless to say, this job was taking far more than 55% of my time, and seemed to be consuming 110% of my psyche. I very much liked my boss and colleagues, was learning a lot, and felt I was improving care for older adults.

But I was also irritable, stressed out, and had developed chronic insomnia. And clinic sessions were leaving me drained and feeling miserable: try as I might, I couldn’t find a way to provide care to my (and my patients’) satisfaction with the time and resources I had available.

One evening my 3 year old daughter looked at me and asked “Why are you always getting mad and saying no?”

Good question, kiddo.

A few weeks later, I told my boss that I’d be resigning my position in 5 months. And I started trying to reimagine how I might practice geriatrics.

My current clinical practice, which I launched last October, is the result of that reimagining.

Continue reading…

assetto corsa mods