All Entries in the "Physician-hospital alignment" Category
Contest winner: MEC orientation
Congratulations to Linda Van Winkle, CPMSM, CPCS, manager of medical staff services at Christus St. Patrick Hospital in Lake Charles, LA! Linda wins one free seat to the 2011 Credentialing Resource Center Symposium for her entry of a medical executive orientation package.
Linda writes:
We just did our first annual MEC orientation program. In the past, we have been fortunate to be able to take our leaders to national MEC leader conferences (The Greeley Company one year, a Horty-Springer conference the next, alternating between the two every other year). We were unable to do that this year due to budget constraints so we decided to do our own. The orientation lasted four hours and packed with information, but it went well.
Contest entry: Celebrate physicians’ birthdays
One way to recognize physicians throughout the year is to celebrate their birthdays.
Linda Van Winkle, CPMSM, CPCS, manager of medical staff services at CHRISTUS St. Patrick Hospital in LakeCharles, LA, sent in this tip.
“This is just a little thing, but I started doing it at the beginning of the year. I can generate this from my credentialing database. I have a report that shows birth dates in chronological order. . . I generate this quickly and e-mail it to him, blind copying pertinent people in the hospital so they will also know it’s his birthday and can wish him a happy birthday if they run into him. The doctors have loved this! And it only takes a second each morning. I also send them to our allied health professionals credentialed through the medical staff.”
Here is a sample e-mail (HTML).
It’s a small thing to do to help with physician satisfaction and loyalty.
Thanks to Linda for sharing her entry to the 2011 Credentialing Resource Center Symposium Contest! To enter yourself, please find all the contest rules here.
Audio clip: More physicians seeking hospital work
The trend for today’s newly minted physicians is to team up with a hospital rather than joining a private practice, according to an October 13 NPR report. Some of the factors for the trend include physicians who want to spend less time on administrative responsibilities that hospitals are willing to take over and who want to shoulder less of a financial burden for their practice.
Click here to listen to the NPR report, “Hospitals Lure Doctors Away From Private Practice.”
After listening to the report, how do you think the trend of more physicians seeking hospital work will change the face of medical staffs? Will more physicians necessarily mean more medical staff members, or will the same factors driving physicians to the ease of hospital practice lessen the physician’s attraction to medical staff leadership roles? Leave your thoughts in the comment boxes below.
Florida pediatricians switch hospitals, reasons unknown
A group of 10 Florida pediatricians have switched hospital affiliations, but the reasons behind the move remain murky, according to an October 7, nwfdailynews.com article. The physicians previously held privileges at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center (FWBMC), but as of October 1, they are exclusively seeing patients at White-Wilson Medical Center.
According to FWBMC the physicians left to focus on their primary care role, but other sources told nwfdailynews.com there were other factors at play. Specifically, the pediatricians objected to FWBMC’s plans for pediatric emergency care services that they felt couldn’t be supported by the organization’s pediatric resources.
Question: Do you think the hospitals involved should fully disclose to the general public the reasons behind the physician’s move, or should the organizations’ let the public know a change has occurred and leave it at that? How would your medical staff handle the situation? Leave your answer in the comment boxes below.
Do you need a medical staff lawyer, or will a call to the hospital lawyer solve the problem?
When medical staffs face a legal problem, they have a choice as to whether they use the hospital’s legal counsel or secure their own counsel. The fact that there is a choice may seem obvious, however, in most instances this may be a hidden choice as medical staff may be likely to use whatever lawyer they used in the past, rather than exploring a new option. If the legal problem the medical staff is facing puts the medical staff at odds with the hospital, the medical staff may be more likely to pursue their own lawyer. Nevertheless it’s important for medical staffs to understand the differences between hospital lawyers and medical staff lawyers and which agent to call.
“The medical staff leadership should be able to get advice from a knowledgeable lawyer that they trust,” says Constance Baker, Esq., partner at Venable, LLP, in Baltimore, who represents hospitals and medical staffs. “I don’t think they generally need separate legal counsel except for these unusual circumstances where the culture may have been such that the medical staff simply cannot trust the hospital leadership or there have been historical reasons why the relationship is not going to work out with the hospital counsel and medical staff.”
One of the reasons why it may be easy for lawyers to play on both teams at once is because often the hospital and medical staff have closely aligned interests, from meeting accreditation requirements to serving the community.
“Any advice that any well-trained, seasoned, experienced hospital attorney can provide really benefits both sides—and in many senses there aren’t two sides, they really are the same side,” says Michael R. Callahan, Esq., partner with the healthcare practice group of Chicago-based Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, who represents hospitals and medical staffs.
Yet, there’s another school of thought that suggests medical staffs need their own lawyers who can solve problems solely from the medical staff’s point of view.
“[Hospital lawyers] represent the hospital so when they are explaining the impact of the due process procedures, how you request a hearing, and what the physician’s rights are, they can explain them without necessarily saying, ‘and if you’re the doctor at the other end of it, it’s a bad idea for you,’” says Michael Cassidy, Esq., of Tucker Arensberg, PC, in Pittsburgh, who represents medical staffs and practitioners. “They don’t go that last step because they’re not supposed to.”
Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium – have you signed up yet?
Source: www.ExploreChicago.org
Looking for more tips on OPPE, employed physician contracts, and ED coverage? Look no further than the Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium. This year’s theme is Practical Solutions to Today’s Physician-Hospital Challenges.
We hope you can join us June 8-9, 2010 in Chicago for this solutions-based conference.
Visit HCMarketplace.com for more information about this year’s sessions and speakers.
(And don’t forget to check out the contest for free registration!)
Building community with satellite clinic and hospital practitioners
Extending medical staff membership to practitioners who primarily work at satellite clinic locations is one way to ensure that those practitioners work as a unit with their hospital-based peers. But it’s not the only way.
Below are some tips medical staffs can use to build camaraderie between the two groups. Remember that building relationships today can pave the way for smooth working conditions in the future.
- Make medical staff meeting attendance mandatory, at least for some meetings. This guarantees that practitioners from multiple locations will gather in a central place to discuss issues that will affect all of them.
- Hold social events or departmental meetings at clinic locations. Some clinics may not have appropriate meeting space, but if they do, explore this option. It will help convince satellite practitioners, who typically travel to the hospital for meetings, to attend, and it will give hospital-based practitioners a clearer picture of the off-site facilities.
- Include news updates from the clinic in monthly medical staff newsletters. Additionally, if the newsletter features a practitioner of the month or highlights the cutting-edge work of a particular team, include a photo along with the article. This will help the hospital-based practitioners get to know the satellite practitioners better.
These tips are from the January issue of Briefings on Credentialing, archived online at www.CredentialingResourceCenter.com.
Free form Friday: Organizationwide Conflict of Interest policy
www.HCMarketplace.com
This week’s form offers a sneak peek at one of the policies from The Top 40 Medical Staff Policies and Procedures, Fourth Edition. It is an organizationwide conflict of interest policy and may be customized to fit your organization’s need.
Click here to download the Organizationwide conflict of interest policy.
The book is available online at www.HCMarketplace.com.
Poll question: Reimbursing for practitioner certifications
The American Board of Medical Specialties approved a new medical specialty for treating child abuse last month. This move highlights the importance practitioners place on regulating their work through certification programs. Medical staffs also value certifications and sometimes make them a privileging requirement.
In this week’s poll question we want to know if your organization helps pay for these certifications. Take the poll below and see how your facility compares to others.
Contest entry: Cut down on med staff meetings
Go to too many meetings? Wouldn’t it be great if we could cut down on the number of meetings required? Hear how one institution made that hope a reality.
Georgiaetta “Poncho” Klebba, CPMSM, medical staff services manager at Capital Region Medical Center (CRMC) in Jefferson City, MO, submitted a best practice on cutting down the number of med staff meetings. The result–medical staff satisfaction and a “tremendous cost savings” for the hospital, she says.
“CRMC reduced the numbers of medical staff department meetings and general staff meetings from four times per year to two times.
Department meetings are held at a local hotel at 5:30 p.m. in April and October with the general staff meeting to follow at 6:30 p.m. The general staff meeting includes dinner and a CME lecture, as well as updates on all new bylaws, rules, regulations, and/or policies that have had chances since the last meeting and reports from the administrative council members on hospital issues. [more]
