Revenue generated from patient hospitalization is often the largest revenue source for a community hospital. According to the American Hospital Association, the total inpatient admission volume to community hospitals has declined every year since 2008. If the decline in inpatient volume wasn’t bad enough on a community hospital’s revenue, the declining reimbursements have begun to push many to the brink of financial failure. No one understands this better than
HospitalMD. Why? Because
HospitalMD was created by our owner to reverse this revenue decline after managing community hospitals for years. He witnessed these declining revenues himself, and realized that Hospital Medicine (HM) staffing groups saw this as a hospital problem. He recognized that community hospitals needed much more than what most HM staffing groups offer. Community hospitals needed a dedicated partner that integrates the business of medicine with clinical expertise, focused on helping them maximize their revenue at every turn. That is the foundation of
HospitalMD, and we take pride in being known as an HM “Management” group rather than staffing company.
HospitalMD has identified a number of areas that are routinely given too little attention by HM staffing groups that can help community hospitals maximize revenue. Whether it’s integrating our physicians as a seamless team with utilization review and case management, clinical documentation training and monitoring to maximize hospital reimbursement, working as a single unit with the Emergency Department and local primary care physicians (PCPs) to streamline the admission process, creating evidenced-based protocols to provide consistent quality care, increasing patient satisfaction, controlling costs by analyzing the appropriateness of diagnostic exams, or support for Hospital’s ICD-10 processes, they all have one thing in common: the
physician. HM staffing groups do not dedicate the time or resources necessary to address these areas in detail, but as a HM Management group,
HospitalMD does!
Clinical Knowledge + No Financial Knowledge = Knowledge “Gap”
Every clinical decision has a financial consequence for which physicians have received little, if any, training.
Physicians receive extraordinary training in the science of medicine. This training enables them to assess a patient’s condition and symptoms and quickly make critical clinical decisions. But every clinical decision has a financial consequence for which physicians have received little, if any, training. And although physicians hear the criticisms that patient care costs too much, they order too many diagnostic exams, they over treat patients and under document, they generally don’t know what to do about it. Because the business of medicine and financial impact of their medical decisions is not provided as part of the extensive training that physicians receive in the science of medicine, the result is a significant knowledge “gap” between their medical decision and the financial ramifications of those decisions.
This “gap” can cause a perfect storm for unintended and adverse medical and financial outcomes for the patient, hospital, and payer. Only physicians with complete medical and financial knowledge can make decisions that truly achieve a balance of business and medicine. Otherwise, the physician can unintentionally put the hospital at financial risk. That is why
HospitalMD has created an extensive training program to provide our physicians with the knowledge and support they need to bridge this “gap”.
They learn the revenue, cost, and regulatory implications of their decisions.
We teach our physicians to make clinical and financial decisions that consider the patient’s medical needs. They learn the revenue, cost, and regulatory implications of their decisions as well as the importance of working with case management and utilization review. We provide direct on-site and technology-based support to continually educate in these areas. This focus leads to more effective patient assessment and diagnostic decisions that balance cost in light of patient disposition, and clinical documentation that assures you that you will maximize your revenue for the services provided.
Teaching and coaching our physicians in this arena is only the start. Measuring the effectiveness of the training program and communicating the results with the physicians and hospital in a consistent manner helps us maintain and adjust our training methods over time. The result is continuous management of our physician practice that focuses on maximizing revenue for our client!
So, when you choose
HospitalMD as your dedicated partner to integrate the business of medicine with clinical expertise, you can be assured that your hospital’s financial health will receive the same amount of attention as the health of your patients.
Contact us today to learn more!
