Upstate cardiology informational interview

1. Jessica Liang
Informational Interview
March 2, 2016
Interviewee: Ron Eskew, Practice Administrator at Upstate Cardiology
1. What personal qualities or abilities are important to being successful in
this field?
You must be an assertive leader in order to create a productive
environment for the clinical staff. You have to be willing to sacrifice
and be selfless to do what needs to be done. You have to have heart
and vision to achieve the goals of your organization. Communication
is key—you should always ask yourself, who else needs to know?
2. Tell me more about your organization. What is its purpose?
The goal of Upstate Cardiology is to be the cardiology practice of
choice in the community. There are four supporting imperatives: to
provide accessible care, to provide quality care with quality customer
service, to be good teammates, and to always communicate well with
each other.
3. How did you get this position?
I was originally commissioned as a health service corps officer and
was always in direct medical support of combat forces. I prepared,
planned, and conducted exercises to make sure that that support was
there when the soldiers needed it. The army sent me to graduate
school to get my Master’s degree in business. Then I worked in fixed
facility hospitals and was a resource manager. Then I became Chief
Operating Officer of two facilities and finally ended my career as the
Chief Executive Officer of a small army hospital in Southern California.
After I retired, I wanted to continue my career in healthcare, and
practice management provided me with an opportunity to continue
service in that way so I started with Upstate Cardiology in 2006.
4. What are common career paths?
You can find all kinds of paths that lead up to this position. In terms of
small practices, physicians have identified great employees within the
practice who have started at the front office level, become promoted
to an insurance specialist, become the front office manager, and
before long they become the practice administrator. However more
and more, the trend has been to make this profession a more
professional discipline requiring a Bachelor’s degree to enter and
eventually a Master’s degree to assume significant responsibility for
larger practices.

2. Jessica Liang
5. How do people find out about job openings in your occupation?
More and more physician practices are aligning themselves with
hospital systems so if a practice had a job opening, it would be posted
on the hospital system’s website. Job vacancies are also posted on the
websites of professional organizations for practice administrators.
Jobs are also listed on career sites like Monster.com. However, many
people also find out about job openings through their previous
internships.
6. What strategy would you suggest for a person breaking into this field?
If you want to do practice management, getting an entry level position
after graduating with an undergraduate degree is very important
because no physician will hire you without any experience. You
should be willing to be a front office specialist and learn about
difference portions of the practice (human resource management,
billing, revenue cycle, leadership) and look for opportunities to lead.
Then go to graduate school later on.
7. What are typical hiring procedures?
Judging a person’s emotional state and intelligence in person more
than their intellect on person. We need to measure a person’s
readiness emotionally. They have to be able to work well with others,
identify what needs to be done in whichever situation is presented,
and communicate well. In our hiring process, we try to gauge
someone’s ability to do all of these things.
8. What do you do on a typical day in this position?
I lead. My day is based on what the organization needs based on my
leadership assessment. I try to have indications of patient satisfaction
and monitor that information very closely. I analyze financial data and
fix small problems before they become issues.
9. How many people do you supervise and to whom do you report?
130 people. I am the administrator of Upstate Cardiology but I report
to the Cardiovascular Diad of Bon Secours Medical Group since we are
a member organization of Bon Secours Medical Group.
10.What part of this job do you find the most challenging or satisfying?
The most satisfying part is working with young professionals to help
them find their way and develop their passions to help them become
successful. The most challenging part has been the recent transition to
a new computer system because we have had to overhaul our entire
system and have had to retrain employees to use the new system.

3. Jessica Liang
11.How many hours do you typically work each week? Do you often work
in the evenings or on the weekends?
55 hours a week. Sometimes you have to work in the evenings and on
the weekends because you are always on call as an administrator.
12.Would you rather for a smaller or larger company?
It doesn’t matter to me as long as the organization is bringing
something to the community. The heart of organization is much more
important to me.
13.How was your organization founded?
Cardiovascular Associates and Greenville Cardiology were separate
practices that merged to form Upstate Cardiology in 1994. Since then,
our practice has been steadily adding physicians. We have also
expanded to encompass 4 total locations.
14.What is unique about your organization?
We hire PRN workers. This means they are called in as needed. A lot of
the staff that we hire full time comes from our PRN pool. As they come
in, they demonstrate their willingness to work and how they can
support our organization. So as a full time job becomes available, we
hire from our PRNs because we already know their work ethic.
15.What special advice would you give a person entering this field?
You must be able to work well with others and be able to
communicate well. You should also try to get any experience that you
can because it will be valuable in the future.