It was June when I saw it. The boarded-up stores of Main Street, paved red with bricks and lost hope.
As I’ve written before (for example, here) and as you’ve undoubtedly witnessed, medical care is shifting from a hospital and, in many cases, physician office, model to a consumer model. Walk-in clinics in markets and drug stores. Apps bringing nurse practitioners or physicians to one’s door. iPhones as diagnostic equipment.
Yet many medical group governing documents and physician-owned facility agreements contain provisions that are inflexible and destined to be breached (or deemed unenforceable) in light of change. Or, worse, destined to strap down your ability to thrive or even to function.
For example, depending on the entity and its purpose, scheduling provisions, restrictive covenants, and compensation models may be out of tune or stretched to the point of soon being so. Consider a provision that allows a group to determine at which hospital facility a provider will be scheduled during a calendar month, when you now want to schedule her to work at Mark’s Pharmacy or at Mark’s house.
Audit and update your strategies, structures and documents not simply in light of compliance and control, but in terms of focus, flexibility and the future.
No one knows exactly where the road to the future is heading, but the signs indicate that it’s away from where things have been. Do you want to go along for the ride?
Oh, yeah, about Main Street. The highway had bypassed the town.
