Learn how facility totals benchmarks could help your organization answer questions like:
• How many call coverage positions do other trauma centers pay?
• How much do hospitals of similar size pay for medical directorships?
• Are we paying more medical directors than other hospitals?
• ...And more!
Both Stark and AKS require that physician contracting rates be negotiated at fair market value. What the regulations lack is clear, tactical advice for determining and documenting FMV. Physician contract compliance can be less of a headache if your organization takes a planned, methodical approach to obtaining and recording payment rates.
Audit Smart: A Best Practices Webinar for Physician Contracting MD Ranger, Inc.
Organizations routinely audit physician contracts to comply with federal regulations, practice good financial management, and maintain relationships with key physicians.
Our compensation benchmarks and online analytics offer unparalleled insights into physician compensation. MD Ranger empowers executives to be able to analyze, negotiate, and document physician contracts. Executives and their teams can determine appropriate compensation rates, negotiate competitive contracts, comply with federal regulations, and identify opportunities for cost savings with MD Ranger.
You can contact the MD Ranger team with questions or for more info at inquiries@mdranger.com.
Physician Contracting Best Practices for Health SystemsMD Ranger, Inc.
This webinar is geared towards health systems and those working with health systems who want to gain efficiencies within physician contracting and learn how to structure internal guidelines and processes.
During this webinar, you will:
--Learn to create successful strategies for organization-wide policies within health systems
--Explore characteristics of high-quality market data
--Review studies of MD Ranger subscribers
Physician Contracting Compliance Risk ChecklistMD Ranger, Inc.
How does your organization ensure its financial relationships with physicians are compliant with federal regulations? To help determine whether or not they might have a physician contracting compliance risk, we created a checklist.
This webinar will cover all elements of our checklist, and integrate best practices from other healthcare organizations. Key topics discussed will be:
--Current regulations and penalties
--Contract organization, analysis
--FMV documentation processes
Practice Valuation & Physician Compensation Planning ConsiderationsPYA, P.C.
PYA Principal Carol Carden and PYA Senior Consultant Katie Culver presented “Practice Valuation and Compensation Planning Considerations" at the TSCPA Southeastern Forensic & Valuation Services Conference.
Physician contracting compliance is a serious concern for healthcare executives, attorneys, and compliance professionals. Maintaining compliance of physician contracts requires balancing physician relationships and paying fairly.
This webinar will cover best practices hospital leaders can use to refine their organization's compliance processes, including:
-Educating staff
-Determining and documenting FMV
-Identifying and handling potentially risky contracts
Both Stark and AKS require that physician contracting rates be negotiated at fair market value. What the regulations lack is clear, tactical advice for determining and documenting FMV. Physician contract compliance can be less of a headache if your organization takes a planned, methodical approach to obtaining and recording payment rates.
Audit Smart: A Best Practices Webinar for Physician Contracting MD Ranger, Inc.
Organizations routinely audit physician contracts to comply with federal regulations, practice good financial management, and maintain relationships with key physicians.
Our compensation benchmarks and online analytics offer unparalleled insights into physician compensation. MD Ranger empowers executives to be able to analyze, negotiate, and document physician contracts. Executives and their teams can determine appropriate compensation rates, negotiate competitive contracts, comply with federal regulations, and identify opportunities for cost savings with MD Ranger.
You can contact the MD Ranger team with questions or for more info at inquiries@mdranger.com.
Physician Contracting Best Practices for Health SystemsMD Ranger, Inc.
This webinar is geared towards health systems and those working with health systems who want to gain efficiencies within physician contracting and learn how to structure internal guidelines and processes.
During this webinar, you will:
--Learn to create successful strategies for organization-wide policies within health systems
--Explore characteristics of high-quality market data
--Review studies of MD Ranger subscribers
Physician Contracting Compliance Risk ChecklistMD Ranger, Inc.
How does your organization ensure its financial relationships with physicians are compliant with federal regulations? To help determine whether or not they might have a physician contracting compliance risk, we created a checklist.
This webinar will cover all elements of our checklist, and integrate best practices from other healthcare organizations. Key topics discussed will be:
--Current regulations and penalties
--Contract organization, analysis
--FMV documentation processes
Practice Valuation & Physician Compensation Planning ConsiderationsPYA, P.C.
PYA Principal Carol Carden and PYA Senior Consultant Katie Culver presented “Practice Valuation and Compensation Planning Considerations" at the TSCPA Southeastern Forensic & Valuation Services Conference.
Physician contracting compliance is a serious concern for healthcare executives, attorneys, and compliance professionals. Maintaining compliance of physician contracts requires balancing physician relationships and paying fairly.
This webinar will cover best practices hospital leaders can use to refine their organization's compliance processes, including:
-Educating staff
-Determining and documenting FMV
-Identifying and handling potentially risky contracts
Join HRG audit expert Vanessa Brumfield as she reviews new and continued areas to focus on in 2021 when it comes to coding and documentation audits. Vanessa will also go over recommended strategies to prioritize these areas in this 30 minute complimentary HRG webinar.
Provider directory accuracy is critical to ensuring consumers get the care they need from the right doctors. The challenge is the rate at which provider data changes and getting that information into the hands of members. Now regulatory bodies are demanding health insurers put processes in place that ensure the information they collect and publish to their member populations is current and complete. Updating mandatory data fields like address, acceptance of new patients, specialty, languages spoken and more can become overwhelming for a health plan – putting a strain on resources. LexisNexis explores where regulations stand, the nature of provider data and why maintaining it is a challenge, and a proven approach to managing your provider data and directories.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions conducted its 2015 Fraud Mitigation Study to examine some of the trends around fraud, fraud detection and fraud analytics, particularly related to the propensity for criminals to perpetrate fraud within multiple industries. Findings uncovered that cross-industry fraud is prevalent and costly, and that fraud mitigation professionals from insurance, health care, retail, communications, insurance, financial services and government could benefit from details of fraud investigations from outside of their own industry. Check out the highlights from our fraud study here.
In this ever-changing revenue cycle space, it’s important for organizations to remain agile. That said, it’s time to break the mold when it comes to denial prevention efforts. During this presentation, we will review trends and traditional methods used over the years and talk about what works and what methods tend to fall short of the goal. We’ll then talk about taking denial prevention to a higher level using a three-pronged approach: reporting, accountability and training. For reporting, we’ll review the importance of defining a claim denial versus a delay in payment and how this distinction impacts prevention focus areas. Accountability is reinforced using a robust action plan that accomplishes cross departmental buy-in. We’ll focus on what should be included in your action plan, what are realistic timeframes, who should be involved and how to keep ideas fresh.
Using Market Data to Support Your Compliance ProgramMD Ranger, Inc.
Determining whether your physician contracts are compliant is no cakewalk. An inconsistent or poorly managed process for negotiating and benchmarking physician contracts can lead to conflicts and strain your
internal resources.
Optimize Your Healthcare Data Quality Investment: Three Ways to Accelerate Ti...Health Catalyst
Healthcare organizations increasingly rely on data to inform strategic decisions. This growing dependence makes ensuring data across the organization is fit for purpose more critical than ever. Decision-making challenges associated with pandemic-driven urgency, variety of data, and lack of resources have further highlighted the critical importance of healthcare data quality and prompted more focus and investment. However, many data quality initiatives are too narrow in focus and reactive in nature or take longer than expected to demonstrate value. This leaves organizations unprepared for future events, like COVID-19, that require a rapid enterprise-wide analytic response.
What are some actionable ways you can help your organization guard against the data quality challenges uncovered this past year and better prepare to respond in the future? Join Taylor Larsen, Director of Data Quality for Health Catalyst, to learn more.
What You’ll Learn
- How data profiling and data quality assessments, in combination with your data catalog, can increase data quality transparency, expedite root cause analysis, and close data quality monitoring gaps.
- How to leverage AI to reduce data quality monitoring configuration and maintenance time and improve accuracy.
- How defining data quality based on its measurable utility (i.e., data represents information that supports better decisions) can provide a scalable way to ensure data are fit for purpose and avoid cost outstripping return.
10th Anniversary Webinar Series: The Definitive Guide to Medical DirectorshipsMD Ranger, Inc.
Join MD Ranger Chief Strategy Officer Allison Pullins as she summarizes and reviews the findings from The Definitive Guide to Medical Direction.
Learn more about medical direction, including:
- Key findings
- Significant trends in medical direction
- What factors impact payment rates
- ...And more!
Key Findings from MD Ranger's 2018 Total Facility Benchmarks ReportMD Ranger, Inc.
Review key findings from our recently published 2018 Total Facility Benchmark Reports, as well as compare them to past years' reports to uncover trends in physician payments.
This presentation covers:
-How much hospitals spend on call coverage and medical directorships
-Facility-wide physician contracting trends
-How healthcare organizations use facility-wide benchmarks to drive better performance
-And more!
Join HRG audit expert Vanessa Brumfield as she reviews new and continued areas to focus on in 2021 when it comes to coding and documentation audits. Vanessa will also go over recommended strategies to prioritize these areas in this 30 minute complimentary HRG webinar.
Provider directory accuracy is critical to ensuring consumers get the care they need from the right doctors. The challenge is the rate at which provider data changes and getting that information into the hands of members. Now regulatory bodies are demanding health insurers put processes in place that ensure the information they collect and publish to their member populations is current and complete. Updating mandatory data fields like address, acceptance of new patients, specialty, languages spoken and more can become overwhelming for a health plan – putting a strain on resources. LexisNexis explores where regulations stand, the nature of provider data and why maintaining it is a challenge, and a proven approach to managing your provider data and directories.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions conducted its 2015 Fraud Mitigation Study to examine some of the trends around fraud, fraud detection and fraud analytics, particularly related to the propensity for criminals to perpetrate fraud within multiple industries. Findings uncovered that cross-industry fraud is prevalent and costly, and that fraud mitigation professionals from insurance, health care, retail, communications, insurance, financial services and government could benefit from details of fraud investigations from outside of their own industry. Check out the highlights from our fraud study here.
In this ever-changing revenue cycle space, it’s important for organizations to remain agile. That said, it’s time to break the mold when it comes to denial prevention efforts. During this presentation, we will review trends and traditional methods used over the years and talk about what works and what methods tend to fall short of the goal. We’ll then talk about taking denial prevention to a higher level using a three-pronged approach: reporting, accountability and training. For reporting, we’ll review the importance of defining a claim denial versus a delay in payment and how this distinction impacts prevention focus areas. Accountability is reinforced using a robust action plan that accomplishes cross departmental buy-in. We’ll focus on what should be included in your action plan, what are realistic timeframes, who should be involved and how to keep ideas fresh.
Using Market Data to Support Your Compliance ProgramMD Ranger, Inc.
Determining whether your physician contracts are compliant is no cakewalk. An inconsistent or poorly managed process for negotiating and benchmarking physician contracts can lead to conflicts and strain your
internal resources.
Optimize Your Healthcare Data Quality Investment: Three Ways to Accelerate Ti...Health Catalyst
Healthcare organizations increasingly rely on data to inform strategic decisions. This growing dependence makes ensuring data across the organization is fit for purpose more critical than ever. Decision-making challenges associated with pandemic-driven urgency, variety of data, and lack of resources have further highlighted the critical importance of healthcare data quality and prompted more focus and investment. However, many data quality initiatives are too narrow in focus and reactive in nature or take longer than expected to demonstrate value. This leaves organizations unprepared for future events, like COVID-19, that require a rapid enterprise-wide analytic response.
What are some actionable ways you can help your organization guard against the data quality challenges uncovered this past year and better prepare to respond in the future? Join Taylor Larsen, Director of Data Quality for Health Catalyst, to learn more.
What You’ll Learn
- How data profiling and data quality assessments, in combination with your data catalog, can increase data quality transparency, expedite root cause analysis, and close data quality monitoring gaps.
- How to leverage AI to reduce data quality monitoring configuration and maintenance time and improve accuracy.
- How defining data quality based on its measurable utility (i.e., data represents information that supports better decisions) can provide a scalable way to ensure data are fit for purpose and avoid cost outstripping return.
10th Anniversary Webinar Series: The Definitive Guide to Medical DirectorshipsMD Ranger, Inc.
Join MD Ranger Chief Strategy Officer Allison Pullins as she summarizes and reviews the findings from The Definitive Guide to Medical Direction.
Learn more about medical direction, including:
- Key findings
- Significant trends in medical direction
- What factors impact payment rates
- ...And more!
Key Findings from MD Ranger's 2018 Total Facility Benchmarks ReportMD Ranger, Inc.
Review key findings from our recently published 2018 Total Facility Benchmark Reports, as well as compare them to past years' reports to uncover trends in physician payments.
This presentation covers:
-How much hospitals spend on call coverage and medical directorships
-Facility-wide physician contracting trends
-How healthcare organizations use facility-wide benchmarks to drive better performance
-And more!
Physician contract compliance can be less of a headache if your organization takes a planned, methodical approach to obtaining and recording payments rates.
If your facility could use best practices for determining and documenting FMV for physician contracts, join us for our 30-minute webinar covering:
--The meaning of FMV
--Various methods to determine FMV
--Strategies for efficient documentation
10th Anniversary Webinar Series: The Definitive Guide to Emergency Call CoverageMD Ranger, Inc.
MD Ranger Chief Strategy Officer Allison Pullins summarizes and reviews the findings from The Definitive Guide to Emergency Call Coverage.
Learn more about ED call coverage, including:
- Key findings
- Significant trends in ED call coverage
- What factors impact call rates
- ...And more!
Key Findings from MD Ranger's 2017 Facility Totals BenchmarksMD Ranger, Inc.
In this webinar we will review our key findings from the new Total Facility Benchmarks, as well as compare them to the past seven years' reports to uncover trends.
Physician contracting brings many challenges, from attracting the right talent and ensuring adequate emergency coverage, to being compliant with Stark. To prevent expensive mistakes, compare your organization to others and determine whether your facility is spending less, the same, or more on total physician contracts. This webinar shares insights from the MD Ranger physician contracting database from the 2013 Annual Reports and shows how much facilities spend on physician contracting for emergency call and directorships.
Key Strategies for Compensating Physician Administrative PositionsMD Ranger, Inc.
Establishing rates for medical directorships has hidden challenges and risks. Even the most sophisticated market data benchmarks should be thoroughly examined and utilized properly. In addition to analyzing market data correctly, there’s an art to establishing rates policies for your organization. This webinar addresses challenges to determining appropriate rates and shares successful organizational policies.
Streamlining Your Medical Practice for Profitability and SuccessConventus
Conventus webinar video providing key success strategies and tactics for improving productivity, profitability, and patient care. The one-hour video features host Susan Lieberman of Conventus and Stevie Davidson of Health Informatics Consulting.
Measuring the Financial Health of Your Physician Contracting ProgramMD Ranger, Inc.
The average hospital spends 3-5% of its total operating budget on physician contracts for emergency coverage, administrative positions, and hospital-based service agreements. These expenditures cannot be ignored
any longer: the financial impact of these relationships can affect the financial outcomes of the entire organization.
Both Stark and AKS require that physician contracting rates be negotiated at fair market value. What the regulations don’t include is explicit, tactical advice for how to determine and document FMV. Physician contract compliance can be less of a headache if your organization takes a planned, methodical approach to obtaining and recording payment rates.
These slides will cover:
-What FMV means
-Various methods to determine FMV
-Strategies for efficient documentation
Physician Contracting at Small and Rural HospitalsMD Ranger, Inc.
In this webinar we discuss discuss the unique physician contracting and compliance considerations facing small and rural hospitals.
We will cover:
- Key considerations for physician contracting at small and rural hospitals
- Spending trends in compensation at these facilities
- Strategies for managing your contracting and compliance program
- And more!
Many organizations struggle to find a way to document fair market value in an efficient and cost-effective manner. For hundreds of healthcare organizations, MD Ranger has taken the headache out of FMV documentation.
This deck will cover key topics including:
• Why audits are important
• Planning and executing your audit
• Physician contracting best practices
• How MD Ranger can help with audits
• ...and more!
Physician Contracting for Exceptional HospitalsMD Ranger, Inc.
Some hospitals have complexities that require careful consideration while determining a physician contracting compliance process. This video will help you identify potential solutions for academic medical centers, children's hospitals, trauma centers, and small hospitals.
Edifecs CJR: don't fumble with your bundle ssEdifecs Inc
Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) opens the door to opportunity for improved joint replacement patient care delivery. With full accountability for both cost and quality for the joint replacement episode, hospitals must share critical data in near real time to align and coordinate the full continuum of post-acute providers. The top complexities Jay Sultan addressed include:
The top complexities Jay Sultan addressed include:
Considerations for entering into contracts with your orthopedic surgeons and other collaborating episode providers
Episode bundle administration and monitoring; gain sharing administration
Real-time data acquisition from collaborating providers
Analytics and reporting, focused care delivery management, and preparation for CMS audits
Whatever burning issues and questions are on your mind
Physician Contracting Whack-A-Mole: Playing to WinMD Ranger, Inc.
Healthcare organizations often struggle with developing processes and best practices for both the creation and the execution of physician agreements. By knowing the risks, you can squash problems before they pop up as potential violations with serious consequences.
This slide deck covers best practices healthcare leaders can use to refine their organization’s financial and compliance processes, including:
-Educating staff
-Determining and documenting FMV
-Identifying and handling potentially risky contracts
-Examples of and solutions to risky situations
In this presentation, we cover:
- Identifying stacking physician agreements
- Why stacking is risky
- Best practices to prevent stacking
- Case study examples
- ...And More!
Similar to Key Findings from MD Ranger’s 2020 Facility Totals Benchmarks (20)
Compliance and Legal Risks in Laborist, Surgicalist, and Hospitalist Arrangem...MD Ranger, Inc.
Have you structured your hospital-based physician contracts to address all aspects of compliance?
Hospitalist agreements involve unique compliance and financial issues, particularly when global payments and advanced practice providers are involved. Risks include indirect compensation, billing and other compliance issues. This presentation will discuss compliance risks and provide guidance on how to structure compliant contracts and business arrangements.
Nervous about the handful of arrangements at your organization that compensate physicians outside traditional FMV ranges?
Even though many healthcare organizations adopt a single benchmark quantile as the standard for payments, there are times when a higher rate is justified. How do you determine what’s fair, and how do you standardize that process?
This deck covers what to do when physician agreements fall outside of traditional FMV Range and how you can protect yourself and your organization against compliance risks, including:
-Evaluating if contracts warrant a higher payment rate
-Crafting policies and procedures for these types of arrangements
-Strategies for efficient, compliant documentation
-And more!
5 Mistakes Hospitals Make with Call Coverage AgreementsMD Ranger, Inc.
This deck covers 5 critical mistakes that hospitals make with call coverage agreements and how to avoid them going forward.
We will cover:
- Effective strategies for setting call rates
- Determining commercial reasonableness
- The most cost-effective ways to pay for call
- Which services are likely to be paid
- ...and more!
What You Need to Know from HCCA's 2019 Compliance InstituteMD Ranger, Inc.
In this presentation, we cover coming changes to Stark Law, turning your hospital's board of directors into compliance advocates, tracking time for medical directors and more!
Perfecting Your Physician Contracting ProgramMD Ranger, Inc.
There are many ways to operationalize a physician contracting team. No program is “one size fits all”. However, many successful physician contracting programs do have a few key things in common.
We will cover:
-Fundamental elements of physician contracting programs
-Best practices to optimize your physician contracting program
-Tools that facilitate success
-And more!
Uncovering Best Practices from Corporate Integrity AgreementsMD Ranger, Inc.
A CIA is a tool used by the OIG to address violations at healthcare organizations through policies and procedures designed to enforce compliance with regulations. A CIA is usually coupled with a civil settlement between the provider and the government to avoid exclusion from federal health programs.
In this presentation, we will discuss how to use recent CIAs to derive best practices that can benefit your organization.
We will cover:
-Common guidelines found in multiple CIAs
-Best practices from CIAs for specific types of healthcare entities
-Easy ways to improve your physician contracting compliance
-And more!
This on-demand webinar covers the basics of Stark Law for those who need a refresher or are new to the compliance arena.
In this webinar we:
- Cover Stark Law basics
- Review penalties for non-compliance
- Discuss strategic and tactical best practices for your physician contracting program
Stop the Financial Bleed: Triaging the Cost of Hospital-Based Physician ServicesMD Ranger, Inc.
This special hour-long webinar from MD Ranger and HealthCare Appraisers advises on how to navigate hospital-based service arrangements at your organization.
Over the last several decades, the number of and cost associated with hospital-based service arrangements have been increasing. These agreements are generally more complex than medical directorships or on-call agreements, and contain unique risks that vary widely between facilities. A thorough understanding of these arrangements is essential to ensure both regulatory compliance and cost containment.
This webinar covers:
- Defining the key components of hospital-based service arrangements
- Reviewing fair market value and commercial reasonableness considerations
- Exploring the key pieces of information and data that drive understanding of these arrangements
- And more!
In this 30-minute webinar we discuss what to do when your physician contract falls outside of traditional FMV Range. Even though many providers adopt a single benchmark quantile as the standard for payments, there are times when a higher rate is justified.
This webinar covers:
- Evaluating if contracts warrant a higher payment rate
- Strategies for efficient documentation of physician contracts
- And more!
Defining, Determining, and Documenting FMV for Medical DirectorshipsMD Ranger, Inc.
Both Stark and AKS require that physician contracting rates be negotiated at fair market value. What the regulations don't include is explicit tactical advice for how to determine and document FMV for medical directorships.
Physician contract compliance can be less of a headache if your organization takes a planned, methodical approach to obtaining and recording payment rates.
If your facility could use best practices for determining and documenting FMV for medical directorship contracts, join us for our 30-minute webinar covering:
-What FMV means
-Various methods to determine FMV
-Strategies for efficient documentation
-And more!
Market data is an efficient way to build a physician contracting compliance program, and is used by hundreds of hospitals across the country. Among the perks of using market data are consistency, accessibility, and flexibility. As long as the database used to calculate payment benchmarks is both large and diverse, benchmarks typically remain stable from year to year. However, even in large databases, there are factors that could change benchmarks from year to year, such as significant increases in the sample size or changes in the market.
By understanding why benchmarks could change from year to year, you can prepare for these changes and address them effectively when they occur. If you are using market surveys or MD Ranger to set physician contract rates and want to learn best practices, this presentation covers:
-Why benchmarks shift
-Addressing changes
-Case studies and real-life examples
High-quality market data is a powerful tool for analyzing physician costs, negotiating competitive contracts, and documenting compliance of hospital-physician agreements. However, market data is not the all-in-one solution for every question or concern regarding physician contracting.
If your organization could use best practices for utilizing market data to evaluate physician contracts, view these slides which cover:
-Situations where market data excels
-When to consult an expert
-Understanding the limitations of market data
Join us to learn:
---1. The key components of physician contracting programs
---2. Steps to take to avoid risky contracting situations
---3. Best practices for creating internal processes
Looking Ahead to Physician Contracting in 2018MD Ranger, Inc.
As 2017 comes to a close, we want to take a step back and look at the actions the OIG and DOJ have taken over the year. These actions are usually a good indicator of what's to come in the next year. How will the focus of the OIG and DOJ impact your physician contracts and strategy in 2018?
One of the most developed cities of India, the city of Chennai is the capital of Tamilnadu and many people from different parts of India come here to earn their bread and butter. Being a metropolitan, the city is filled with towering building and beaches but the sad part as with almost every Indian city
CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary gene-editing tool, holds immense potential to reshape medicine, agriculture, and our understanding of life. But like any powerful tool, it comes with ethical considerations.
Unveiling CRISPR: This naturally occurring bacterial defense system (crRNA & Cas9 protein) fights viruses. Scientists repurposed it for precise gene editing (correction, deletion, insertion) by targeting specific DNA sequences.
The Promise: CRISPR offers exciting possibilities:
Gene Therapy: Correcting genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.
Agriculture: Engineering crops resistant to pests and harsh environments.
Research: Studying gene function to unlock new knowledge.
The Peril: Ethical concerns demand attention:
Off-target Effects: Unintended DNA edits can have unforeseen consequences.
Eugenics: Misusing CRISPR for designer babies raises social and ethical questions.
Equity: High costs could limit access to this potentially life-saving technology.
The Path Forward: Responsible development is crucial:
International Collaboration: Clear guidelines are needed for research and human trials.
Public Education: Open discussions ensure informed decisions about CRISPR.
Prioritize Safety and Ethics: Safety and ethical principles must be paramount.
CRISPR offers a powerful tool for a better future, but responsible development and addressing ethical concerns are essential. By prioritizing safety, fostering open dialogue, and ensuring equitable access, we can harness CRISPR's power for the benefit of all. (2998 characters)
Navigating Challenges: Mental Health, Legislation, and the Prison System in B...Guillermo Rivera
This conference will delve into the intricate intersections between mental health, legal frameworks, and the prison system in Bolivia. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current challenges faced by mental health professionals working within the legislative and correctional landscapes. Topics of discussion will include the prevalence and impact of mental health issues among the incarcerated population, the effectiveness of existing mental health policies and legislation, and potential reforms to enhance the mental health support system within prisons.
Antibiotic Stewardship by Anushri Srivastava.pptxAnushriSrivastav
Stewardship is the act of taking good care of something.
Antimicrobial stewardship is a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improves patient outcomes, reduces microbial resistance, and decreases the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.
WHO launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) in 2015 to fill knowledge gaps and inform strategies at all levels.
ACCORDING TO apic.org,
Antimicrobial stewardship is a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improves patient outcomes, reduces microbial resistance, and decreases the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.
ACCORDING TO pewtrusts.org,
Antibiotic stewardship refers to efforts in doctors’ offices, hospitals, long term care facilities, and other health care settings to ensure that antibiotics are used only when necessary and appropriate
According to WHO,
Antimicrobial stewardship is a systematic approach to educate and support health care professionals to follow evidence-based guidelines for prescribing and administering antimicrobials
In 1996, John McGowan and Dale Gerding first applied the term antimicrobial stewardship, where they suggested a causal association between antimicrobial agent use and resistance. They also focused on the urgency of large-scale controlled trials of antimicrobial-use regulation employing sophisticated epidemiologic methods, molecular typing, and precise resistance mechanism analysis.
Antimicrobial Stewardship(AMS) refers to the optimal selection, dosing, and duration of antimicrobial treatment resulting in the best clinical outcome with minimal side effects to the patients and minimal impact on subsequent resistance.
According to the 2019 report, in the US, more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur each year, and more than 35000 people die. In addition to this, it also mentioned that 223,900 cases of Clostridoides difficile occurred in 2017, of which 12800 people died. The report did not include viruses or parasites
VISION
Being proactive
Supporting optimal animal and human health
Exploring ways to reduce overall use of antimicrobials
Using the drugs that prevent and treat disease by killing microscopic organisms in a responsible way
GOAL
to prevent the generation and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Doing so will preserve the effectiveness of these drugs in animals and humans for years to come.
being to preserve human and animal health and the effectiveness of antimicrobial medications.
to implement a multidisciplinary approach in assembling a stewardship team to include an infectious disease physician, a clinical pharmacist with infectious diseases training, infection preventionist, and a close collaboration with the staff in the clinical microbiology laboratory
to prevent antimicrobial overuse, misuse and abuse.
to minimize the developme
Explore our infographic on 'Essential Metrics for Palliative Care Management' which highlights key performance indicators crucial for enhancing the quality and efficiency of palliative care services.
This visual guide breaks down important metrics across four categories: Patient-Centered Metrics, Care Efficiency Metrics, Quality of Life Metrics, and Staff Metrics. Each section is designed to help healthcare professionals monitor and improve care delivery for patients facing serious illnesses. Understand how to implement these metrics in your palliative care practices for better outcomes and higher satisfaction levels.
CHAPTER 1 SEMESTER V - ROLE OF PEADIATRIC NURSE.pdfSachin Sharma
Pediatric nurses play a vital role in the health and well-being of children. Their responsibilities are wide-ranging, and their objectives can be categorized into several key areas:
1. Direct Patient Care:
Objective: Provide comprehensive and compassionate care to infants, children, and adolescents in various healthcare settings (hospitals, clinics, etc.).
This includes tasks like:
Monitoring vital signs and physical condition.
Administering medications and treatments.
Performing procedures as directed by doctors.
Assisting with daily living activities (bathing, feeding).
Providing emotional support and pain management.
2. Health Promotion and Education:
Objective: Promote healthy behaviors and educate children, families, and communities about preventive healthcare.
This includes tasks like:
Administering vaccinations.
Providing education on nutrition, hygiene, and development.
Offering breastfeeding and childbirth support.
Counseling families on safety and injury prevention.
3. Collaboration and Advocacy:
Objective: Collaborate effectively with doctors, social workers, therapists, and other healthcare professionals to ensure coordinated care for children.
Objective: Advocate for the rights and best interests of their patients, especially when children cannot speak for themselves.
This includes tasks like:
Communicating effectively with healthcare teams.
Identifying and addressing potential risks to child welfare.
Educating families about their child's condition and treatment options.
4. Professional Development and Research:
Objective: Stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in pediatric healthcare through continuing education and research.
Objective: Contribute to improving the quality of care for children by participating in research initiatives.
This includes tasks like:
Attending workshops and conferences on pediatric nursing.
Participating in clinical trials related to child health.
Implementing evidence-based practices into their daily routines.
By fulfilling these objectives, pediatric nurses play a crucial role in ensuring the optimal health and well-being of children throughout all stages of their development.
Telehealth Psychology Building Trust with Clients.pptxThe Harvest Clinic
Telehealth psychology is a digital approach that offers psychological services and mental health care to clients remotely, using technologies like video conferencing, phone calls, text messaging, and mobile apps for communication.
CHAPTER 1 SEMESTER V PREVENTIVE-PEDIATRICS.pdfSachin Sharma
This content provides an overview of preventive pediatrics. It defines preventive pediatrics as preventing disease and promoting children's physical, mental, and social well-being to achieve positive health. It discusses antenatal, postnatal, and social preventive pediatrics. It also covers various child health programs like immunization, breastfeeding, ICDS, and the roles of organizations like WHO, UNICEF, and nurses in preventive pediatrics.
Medical Technology Tackles New Health Care Demand - Research Report - March 2...pchutichetpong
M Capital Group (“MCG”) predicts that with, against, despite, and even without the global pandemic, the medical technology (MedTech) industry shows signs of continuous healthy growth, driven by smaller, faster, and cheaper devices, growing demand for home-based applications, technological innovation, strategic acquisitions, investments, and SPAC listings. MCG predicts that this should reflects itself in annual growth of over 6%, well beyond 2028.
According to Chris Mouchabhani, Managing Partner at M Capital Group, “Despite all economic scenarios that one may consider, beyond overall economic shocks, medical technology should remain one of the most promising and robust sectors over the short to medium term and well beyond 2028.”
There is a movement towards home-based care for the elderly, next generation scanning and MRI devices, wearable technology, artificial intelligence incorporation, and online connectivity. Experts also see a focus on predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory, and precision medicine, with rising levels of integration of home care and technological innovation.
The average cost of treatment has been rising across the board, creating additional financial burdens to governments, healthcare providers and insurance companies. According to MCG, cost-per-inpatient-stay in the United States alone rose on average annually by over 13% between 2014 to 2021, leading MedTech to focus research efforts on optimized medical equipment at lower price points, whilst emphasizing portability and ease of use. Namely, 46% of the 1,008 medical technology companies in the 2021 MedTech Innovator (“MTI”) database are focusing on prevention, wellness, detection, or diagnosis, signaling a clear push for preventive care to also tackle costs.
In addition, there has also been a lasting impact on consumer and medical demand for home care, supported by the pandemic. Lockdowns, closure of care facilities, and healthcare systems subjected to capacity pressure, accelerated demand away from traditional inpatient care. Now, outpatient care solutions are driving industry production, with nearly 70% of recent diagnostics start-up companies producing products in areas such as ambulatory clinics, at-home care, and self-administered diagnostics.
Empowering ACOs: Leveraging Quality Management Tools for MIPS and BeyondHealth Catalyst
Join us as we delve into the crucial realm of quality reporting for MSSP (Medicare Shared Savings Program) Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).
In this session, we will explore how a robust quality management solution can empower your organization to meet regulatory requirements and improve processes for MIPS reporting and internal quality programs. Learn how our MeasureAble application enables compliance and fosters continuous improvement.
Deep Leg Vein Thrombosis (DVT): Meaning, Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, and Mor...The Lifesciences Magazine
Deep Leg Vein Thrombosis occurs when a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in the legs. These clots can impede blood flow, leading to severe complications.
4. Our vision
• https://vimeo.com/473179351 costs
Cost is the largest issue facing healthcare
organizations
✔ Providers face enormous pressure to bend
the cost curve
✔ Physician-related expenses cost
organizations millions of dollars a year, but
you can’t manage what you don’t measure
✔ If you aren’t leveraging technology within
the physician contracting and compensation
process, you leave your organization
vulnerable to compliance risks and
overspending
6. INSTANT MARKET RATE COMPARISONS &
DOCUMENTATION
NO BLACK-BOX
ALGORITHMS
EXPERT SUPPORT AND
ANALYSIS
COMPREHENSIVE TECHNOLOGY
AUDITING AND MONITORING
TOOLS
FACILITY-WIDE BENCHMARKS
Why MD Ranger?
WE’RE DIFFERENT. HERE’S HOW.
MORE BENCHMARKS; LARGER
SAMPLE SIZES
CONTRACT NEGOTIATION
TOOLS
7. Benchmarks: adding value
1. Understand the market for physician services
2. Establish appropriate physician payments
relevant to your organization
3. Measure performance to certain standards
4. Compare costs across your organization
8. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
About facility totals benchmarks
• MD Ranger calculates a facility’s total non-salary estimated
physician spend using aggregated subscriber data
• The benchmarks are calculated from call coverage, medical
direction, other administrative positions and hospital-based
contracts
• The benchmarks do not include collection guarantees (when
we don’t have enough information to know net payments) and
positions with no net annual payment data, hence they provide
a conservative estimate of total facility physician expenses
9. Overall spend benchmarks
• While benchmarking on a contract
by contract level basis is
straightforward, benchmarking
your organization on overall
spend is more nuanced but
equally important
• Using facility-wide benchmarks
can help a hospital or health
system identify opportunities to
reduce costs, address or
document outliers, or revise
payment policies
Facility total benchmarks give a helpful
perspective on physician payment
practices and costs
10. Unprecedented insightFacility total benchmarks shed light on the scope and type of payments
made by hospitals with different characteristics such as size and trauma
status.
$0
$2,000,000
$4,000,000
$6,000,000
$8,000,000
$10,000,000
$12,000,000
$14,000,000
$16,000,000
Median Total Physician Spend by Facility Characteristic
11. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
Factors influencing payments
• Trauma Status
• Facility size
• Payor Mix
• Number of facilities being covered
• Type of market
14. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
Hospital-based spending over time
Hospital-based service spending is on the rise
Hospitalist programs in particular continue to expand their
footprint as these types of programs proliferate. We have
seen growth in specialist hospitalist programs in
particular, such as laborists, neurointensivists, orthopedic
hospitalists, and psychiatric hospitalists
Frequency of 24/7 coverage for these programs has also
increased, at additional cost
16. ED call spend distribution
• Despite increases in hospitalist
services, call coverage spending
has remained relatively steady
(and significant) for facilities in
the MD Ranger database over
time
• The average hospital spends
around $3.5 a year on ED call
coverage arrangements alone.
• Typical payments are on a per
diem basis
19. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
Direction and administrative total spending
trends: 2016-2020
• Hourly rates have remained virtually unchanged
• Annual rates are up slightly
• While types of administrative positions and roles have
increased over the years, fewer physicians are performing the
work
• Each contract is ending up with more hours leading to higher
annual rates for the doctors and lower annual rates for facilities
25. Drive performance
USE MD RANGER BECNHMARKS FOR STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING
AUDIT/
MONITOR
BUDGET
& PLAN
OVERALL
TRENDS
▪ Use benchmarks to budget for
new positions, recruitment
agreements, PSAs,
employment arrangements,
and compensation planning
▪ Understand time commitment
ranges for 100+
administrative/director
positions for planning and
resource allocation
▪ For AMCs: make funds-flow
decisions and negotiate rates
for outreach services and
partnerships
▪ Provide annual physician
compensation and productivity
reviews and analysis
▪ Perform quarterly or annual
compliance audits
▪ Monitor arrangements and
identify risky contracts for
compliance
▪ View spending by facility and
service; drill down by type of
arrangement, specialty, or
program
▪ Understand your
organization’s overall
investment in physician
contracts
▪ Compare total spending to
benchmarks
26. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
Summary of key findings
• Factors influencing total facility spend include facility size and trauma
status
• Hospital-based services are the fastest growing category of spending
• ED call coverage total spending has remained relatively stable over time
but is influenced by factors like facility size, ADC, and trauma status
• From 2016-2020, hospital spend for medical directors has decreased
slightly, while the average number of paid services has increased. This
could be due to consolidating administrative roles.
• Median number of paid hours per position in medical director contracts
increased over the past 10 years, meaning directors and administrators
are putting in more time.
• Hourly rates have been steady, but the increase in hours has meant an
increase in the average payment per contract.
27. How to use these benchmarks
Compare your facility based on key
characteristics
Analyze facilities within a system: identify
outliers and opportunities for
standardization
Understand total payments for types of
services within a facility and across a
system of facilities
28. Using MD Ranger analytics: by facility and type
Compare your spending to Facility
Totals Benchmarks
30. Our vision
• Policies and procedures to streamline
physician compensation
• All your physician compensation
benchmarking needs in one place
• Simple look-ups with trusted data
• Single source to facilitate consistent
methodology and data to apply throughout
your organization
• Repository of contracts and comparison
tools to enable budgeting, negotiating and
analyzing physician costs
How Sycamore Health* uses Facility Totals
Benchmarks
• Level II trauma center CEO concerned about
total dollars spent on ED coverage
arrangements and hospital-based agreements
• Listens to MD Ranger’s Total Facility
Benchmarks webinar; looks at his facility’s MD
Ranger’s Analytics Dashboard
• Compares his facility to other trauma center
spend using benchmarks
• Determines his facility is well within an
acceptable range; focuses his time and effort on
high-value on hospital-based arrangements like
orthopedic hospitalists
*Pseudonym
31. Let’s talk
⁃ Do you need to streamline physician
compensation and FMV documentation
processes?
⁃ Do you need one comprehensive source for
decision support and compliance?
⁃ Do you need a consistent process to identify risky
contracts or monitor your physician spend?
⁃ Reach out: email info@mdranger.com or call our
office at 650-692-8873
Editor's Notes
Hello Everyone! Thank you for joining us today! My name is Lauren Slaven and joining me today is my colleague Jeremy Goldberg. We are here today to talk about MD Ranger’s facility totals benchmarks. Before we begin, I want to let you know that we will be recording the session and we will distribute the recording to attendees in a few days. If you have any questions during the webinar, please submit those to my colleague Erik Bartlett via the chat box on go to webinar. If Erik can’t get to the questions during the webinar he or I will follow up shortly after.
LS-Here’s our agenda for the webinar today. First, we will provide a brief introduction to MD Ranger, then we will get into the benchmarks and provide some key takeaways. Before we start I would like to take a moment to introduce your hosts to you.
LS- My name is Lauren Slaven and I’m a senior sales executive here at MD Ranger. I have worked with healthcare organizations for about the last 9 years or so primarily in relation to contract management and contracting processes, policies and procedures. My hobbies include cooking and I have recently taken up playing the banjo. Joining me today is my colleague Jeremy Goldberg, Jeremy…..
J: Thank you Lauren. Hi, I am Jeremy Goldberg and I am the data specialist at MD Ranger. I work with our subscribers when they are submitting data as well as helping them use and understand the benchmarks we produce. Outside of work I have started playing disc golf as a social distance activity.
LS- Imagine if, at the end of the day the policies and procedures that dictate your physician compensation program are simple and easy all your needs are met within one solution you have a single source that has consistent and sound methodology and benchmarks.
The industry needs products that are easy to use and can help you across the multiple areas of physician compensation and contracting. Ideally our goal is to help you create day-to-day efficiencies so that you are then able to be strategic - focusing on important issues not managing consultants and summarizing contracts.
Imagine focusing on being in true alignment with your doctors.
That's really our vision for you as progressive health care organizations within today's complex environment.
LS- MD Ranger’s founders identified significant issues with physician contracting that contributed to out of control costs and were characterized by inefficient policies and processes. The company set out to create a product-based solution to meet organization’s physician contracting needs.
We aim to make physician compensation less complicated and more streamlined. These are our goals, and we meet them by marrying powerful surveys to easy-to-use technology features like easy look-ups and automated analytics. These features create a very powerful product that helps people like Maria resolve big cost challenges.
In addition to providing benchmarks that you are used to seeing in other surveys like compensation and call coverage. MD Ranger provides benchmarks for a broad range of services and metrics that include total hospital spending across all non-salary services.
Facility total benchmarks provide insight into the scope and type of payments made by hospitals with different characteristics such as size and trauma status. Benchmarks aren’t necessarily the end all be all but they are incredibly powerful, especially when used in the decision-making process at your organization. We translate the insights that we get from compensation benchmarks to an organization-wide context.
LS- When it comes to our benchmarks we have some key differences to our methodology and our data that are very important to share in the context of this webinar.
First, when it comes to sample size and reporting our benchmarks, we generally take a more conservative approach which creates stability in our benchmarks.
Also, instead of collecting data directly from doctors, we get our data from hospitals and healthcare organizations contracting with physicians for services.
it is not just high quality benchmarks, it is a comprehensive toolkit for everything from looking up rates to providing the reports and tools to be the foundation of a physician contract compliance process across an organization.
Now, because of the vast amount of data collected by MD Ranger, we are able to analyze total spending on physician contracts by MD Ranger subscribers. We will tell you more about this shortly!
LS- Now before we get into the facility totals themselves, I do want to spend a few minutes discussing why benchmarking is really good for your organization.
Using benchmarks for physician contracting on a contract by contract basis is an established best practice. Even if you are actually using a valuation consultant to document FMV for a payment rate, market data benchmarks are routinely used as part – if not the very basis - of that analysis.
Physician compensation benchmarks help us understand what the market is like for any particular physician service.
Benchmarks help you understand where on the market ranges you are paying at your organization and they can help you stay within organizational guidelines, to ensure consistent payment standards across services and facilities.
Benchmarks ultimately help you measure an organization's performance against a standard and help you understand how your organizations are performing in relation to other organizations.
LS- A total spending amount for each facility is computed by summing estimated values for all reported coverage, administration, and hospital-based physician contracts for which annualized payment rates are available. Taking each facility total as a single data point, a distribution of facility total spending is formed, and the percentile values are reported.
LS- On the other hand when we are talking about organization wide benchmarks… I’m finding that most healthcare organizations aren’t tapping into these insights.
Either organizations don’t know where to find facility benchmarks or they are focusing on the details of negotiating and documenting individual contracts so that they can’t really see the forest for the trees.
Ultimately facility wide benchmarks can help organizations identify cost reduction opportunities, determine if there are any services or service line areas that are outliers in terms of overall spend, or even revise payment policies that might not be serving the organization.
It’s always shocking to me when I ask organizations how much they are spending on physician contracting and they have no idea. To follow that I’ll ask how much they are spending on call coverage for instance, they may know how many services they are paying for or about how much they are paying for per diems but it’s typically vague. These should be numbers that are easily accessible to you, your leadership team and your board.
Jeremy is going to provide some additional insight into our facility totals benchmarks.
JG- Our data collection method provide insight into a number of benchmark characteristics and payment trends. We slice our data by various characteristics because we know each hospital is different and has unique needs. As we go through the benchmarks today, I will be focusing on the All Facilities slice but do remember that every facility is different. As you can see, the difference between a trauma center, and hospital size are big drivers of cost, so it’s important to benchmark against the right facilities.
JG- MD Ranger annually review how facility size affects physician compensation and as our database has grown we have been able to increase the number of facility size benchmark cuts available. Bed size benchmarks are available in three slices: under 100 beds, between 100 and 300 beds, and above 300 beds. Average daily census also has three slices: under 75, between 75 and 150, and above 150. These benchmarks enable more accurate peer comparisons.
Facility characteristics can dramatically alter the total annual payment medians for a given hospital. In addition to trauma status and hospital size (beds or ADC), MD Ranger data also shows splits in overall payments depending on Urban vs. Non-Urban location and depending on percent of medicare days - primarily used as a SURROGATE for payer mix.
One other important factor is how many facilities are being covered. While these benchmarks focus on single facilities, some arrangements we see are for multiple facilities.
JG- In general we have seen Total Facility physician spending rise over the past ten years. You can see here that there is a huge distribution among facilities from just a few million to more than 20 million dollars every year. Note that there is more than a three-fold difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles of annual payments. The average was $8,481,580. This is a significant amount of money for any facility. Some of our subscribers will take a look at this, realize they are under the median and breathe a sigh of relief. Others REALIZE THEY ARE SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT FROM COMPARABLE HOSPITALS AND UNDERTAKE A MORE THOROUGH ANALYSIS.
JG- Hospital Based Stipends have become the biggest part of many hospitals spending. These are services that generally are exclusively provided at the hospital by contracted groups of physicians. Facilities spend an average of $4,621,980 on Hospital Based Stipends. While some of these services are still paid as call coverage and medical direction separately, we are seeing a shift to more of these being paid as a stipend to a group of physicians.
We believe the proliferation of hospitalist services--both general hospitalists and all the specialist hospitalists – are the biggest driver in the cost increases.
There's more and more hospitals adopting hospitalist programs and more types of programs. Good examples are psychiatric hospitalists, laborists and neurohospitalists, but also more peds hospitalists programs as well. There are also more in-house physicians for more hours daily.
2:14
JG- Hospital Based Stipends have become the biggest part of many hospitals spending. Facilities spend an average of $4,621,980 on Hospital Based Stipends.
Hospitalists continue to increase their span of practice within hospitals, so contracts are larger – plus frequency of 24/7 coverage has increased. In addition, specialty hospitalist programs such as laborists, neurointensivists, orthopedic hospitalists, psychiatric hospitalists, etc. have increased in frequency. In 2020, 77% of hospitals had a hospitalist program and 63% had some form of specialty hospitalist program. 40% had a laborist program.
JG- Our analysis has found that trauma designation is THE MOST significant factor in payment rates and total expenditures across almost all types of physician contracts. We have now been producing these facility total benchmarks for 5 years. We have seen a nearly 2 fold increase in Hospital Based Stipends at Trauma centers.
JG- Call coverage payments continue to rise, averaging $3,256,310 at a facility, with a wide range in payments. Trauma centers spend more than non-trauma centers. While this is no longer the biggest part of many facilities spend it is still a point of pain for many organizations.
JG- Payments vary significantly by type of facility, with trauma status and hospital size the most significant factor in total call coverage payments. While call coverage payments have not changed significantly at the facility level. This is still a huge pain point for many organizations.
JG- The number of paid coverage services has remained pretty stable each year and averaged 12 this year compared to 13 IN 2017??. This is a benchmark unique to MD Ranger that helps identify how your facility compares to similar hospitals. As with total payments, trauma centers have more panels on call. Also as a reminder this is looking at the number of distinct services or panels, not the number of doctors.
JG- While we have seen individual direction contracts increase in cost, the total spend for all directorships has been declining. This could be due to the aggregation of direction positions. In some cases, two people were previously doing something THAT could be done by just one. Or A MULTI-FACILITY POSITION HAS REPLACED MULTIPLE POSITIONS. While total spend has gone down for the facility, the individual physicians have actually been receiving more, and we have seen a trend in higher hours.
JG- Medical Direction and Administration Payments have been on the decline in recent years. Facilities average spending just $855,720 on administration and direction. While we have seen the number of hours increase on a individual contract level, the total spend has decreased. As I just discussed on the previous slide, much of this is due to a decrease in the number of administrative positions at each facility.
JG- in 2020, the average hospital paid for 23 directorships, a slight decline since 2017.
However, the number of annual hours per director has increased. We also have found that both hours and the number of medical directors increases with hospital size.
A notable exception to the decline in directorships is psychiatry, in which we have seen an increase in the number of paid psychiatry administrators across hospitals of all sizes around the country. This could be related to the increase in psychiatric hospitalist and outpatient behavioral health services we have observed over the past few years.
Medical Directorship payments remain a critical point of concern for health systems
Payments for medical directorships continue to be a major expense for hospitals across the country. Paying too much for such services and paying for services without sufficient evidence of the commercial reasonableness for such payments can be a compliance risk under the Stark and Anti-Kickback statutes. Comparing your facility’s total number and cost for medical direction and other administrative services on a periodic basis should become a routine component of your compliance program. Payment benchmarks such as those provided by MD Ranger can provide insight into how much and when to pay, providing important information for negotiating contracts, documenting compliance and identifying opportunities to reduce cost.
JG- Our holistic data collection also allows us to create other unique facility level benchmarks. We calculate the percent of Subscribers who report paying for a service broke down by payment type. This can be great in helping determine if it is commercially reasonable to be paying for a service., an important factor in FMV documentation but also important to know when you enter negotiations for a new position.
JG- We also provide benchmarks on the number of paid administrators by service. The services that most frequently have more than one director positions are cardiology, GI, neurology, cancer programs, psychiatry and urology.
JG- One question I get sometimes, is people wondering what is the most commonly paid service. This year, it was Emergency medicine. These are the most commonly paid services of any type, the precents shown here represent the percent of subscribers that report paying for these services. They could have call coverage, direction, or Hospital Based payments or any combination.
Unsurprisingly, many of these are Hospital Based Services and Laborists are included in OB/GYN-All Types.
Lauren, do you want to share additional information in relation to how total facility benchmarks can be used to create cost saving efficiencies?
LS- You can use MD Ranger to budget and plan and also utilize it for auditing and monitoring CONTRACT EXPENSES and you can also see those overall spending trends across your organization
LS-
The largest impact on spend is facility size and trauma status with hospital based services growing the fastest in relation to spend.
Call coverage is influenced by different factors such as facility size, trauma status and also ADC.
We have seen the spend for medical directors decrease slightly but the number of paid services has increased which may be attributed to the consolidation of roles.
We have seen hours per paid position increase which is attributed to the fact that directors and medical directors are putting in more time.
We have observed that increased focus on quality initiatives and regulatory requirements in relation to median number of hours per position has resulted in the increase of average payment per contract.
LS- Organizations and valuation consultants frequently use benchmarks to both set physician payments rates and to document fair market value. It’s rare to come across an organization that isn’t pulling market data survey numbers whenever they are filing away an agreement they have negotiated is indeed fair market value. The facility total benchmarks add another layer of analysis to your benchmarking and budgeting toolkit, helping to identify areas for risk management or opportunities to save money.
LS- Our Subscribers can use the MD Ranger Analytics tools to see and document their overall spend across the organization. We breakdown spend by facility, by spending type, and by service. All of these can be compared to our facility totals to ensure you are within fair market range.
LS- Our Subscribers can use the MD Ranger Analytics tools to see and document their overall spend. We breakdown spend by facility, by spending type, and by service. All of these can be compared to our facility totals to ensure you are within fair market range.
Jeremy is going to walk you through an example we have seen recently.
JG- Here is the story of how one of our subscribers uses our facility totals. The names are changed to protect their privacy. This person works at an urban Level II trauma center and is concerned about how much they spend on their non-employed physicians. They can compare their values with the MD Ranger benchmarks, both at the service and facility level, using the Analytics tools. After realizing their call coverage is well within range, they can focus their efforts on contracts that are CLEARLY OVER THEIR COMFORT ZONE. They can also identify service and payment differences between facilities, to further identify areas for review.
LS- So, if you think facility totals benchmarks would be helpful to your organization or if you would like to discuss further, here’s my contact information, give me a call or shoot me an email and we can touch base.