Is your group playing to win or just playing not to lose?
Are you working at only one facility and hoping that your exclusive contract will be renewed or that your relationship with referring physicians on the facility’s medical staff will continue to result in a stream of patients?
Are you simply laying low and hoping that ACOs and hospital-centric healthcare goes away?
None of this demonstrates a viable group strategy. Instead, it indicates slow decay.
In a dynamic healthcare market, sitting by the sidelines isn’t a strategy. It is a recipe for disaster. The object isn’t simply to survive, it’s to chart a course that leads to a transformationally more successful outcome for your group.
Note that this doesn’t mean that you always have to take affirmative action — to say yes to every project, or to take, in a particular instance, aggressive action in respect of a project or a negotiation. Rather, it means that you have to take affirmative steps to decide whether or not you are going to take action.
Certainly, the times are turbulent for physicians and medical groups. The government and hospitals are grabbing power. Paraprofessionals believe they’re competent to perform many of your functions and, to some extent, the payers and the public agree.
But that doesn’t mean that you have to accept the fate that those authors are writing for you. There remains tremendous opportunity for those few who are willing to play to win.
Are you among them?
