The sky is falling — I know, I heard it on the news today. The healthcare market is in a state of flux.
Earlier states of flux resulted in Medicare, seen in classic shortsighted terms by physicians as a new source of funding but which ended up becoming a weight dragging down reimbursement, a target to which commercial carriers aspired.
Earlier states of flux also saw physicians’ abdication of responsibility in the face of the onslaught of managed care which, doing the negative impact of Medicare one better, reduced both physician incomes and physician control over the practice of medicine and the destiny of healthcare.
So what’s a hospital based medical group to do? I suspect that the majority will “benchmark” to the leaders in retrenching and will do absently nothing other than cut costs, lay low and pray for better days.
But there is no advantage in lowering your expectations in terms of income and favorable exclusive contract provisions, as someone else’s expectations can, and will, always be lower.
That’s exactly why groups that want to succeed should be doing the opposite: This is the time to become aggressive both in terms of obtaining long term exclusive contracts, seeking to expand to other facilities and, importantly, obtaining commitments of significant financial support over the terms of those exclusive contracts.
Hard to do? Not if you take the proper approach and devote the proper time and effort.
