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IC 103-2023: The Business of Medicine: Hospital-Ba ...
IC 103 - The Business of Medicine: Hospital-Based, ...
IC 103 - The Business of Medicine: Hospital-Based, Academic, Private Practice - Learning How To Succeed (1/5)
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to it. I'd like you to avoid professional help outside of the medicine. I want you to understand the terminology. We went to medical school. We went to residency. We have words and we have to be able to talk to the business community. And so whether you're an employed physician or a private practitioner, I think all of this can help to guide your colleagues to have you succeed. You hear all about value-based healthcare and yes, it's Michael Porter that said that, but you have to start thinking about, and I'm going to test you and be sarcastic. I'm a New Yorker. Whose value is it? Is it a value to the taxpayer? Is it a value to the patients as a group? Is it a value to that moron coming down the hill? Is it unique? And what do we achieve? Is it a short-term game? Is it a long-term game? Do we care of economics? Is it just beating us up? We have to think about it. So achieving that value, the only thing I think that we can do at the end of the day and really have control is show what we have in the value. And I will tell you that we're supposed to allow patients to stop spending. I don't think that's going to happen. I'll tell you it's happening. It's happened for a long time and I don't want you to fall asleep and we don't like to play very active for whatever reason as doctors, some of us, but not all of us. Did you know my own residency? I came from Harvard. They've unionized the residents. It's a fact of life. Does that mean we're next? The nurses have unionized. They go on strike. The hospital listens. Doctor leaves. They don't listen. It doesn't matter. They think there's another one of us. I think you all have to see that something is happening and we all have to pay attention to it. So you have to know what happens in business outside of medicine. So normally here is a marketplace, young ladies going down the aisle to pick something up. So competition amongst ourselves drives relentless improvement. So the person down the street is better than you and you have to then try to be better than them. Innovation comes along. The companies help you. The competitors grow. Value supposedly improves for the consumer. The markets expand. And so that's not at all what we do. We end up listening to each other, learning from each other because we care about each other. And then we kind of, oh, the patient says, oh, I have a doctor. I don't even know her or his name. That's wrong. And so we need to distinguish, and I'm sorry, each of you have to distinguish yourself from your competitor. Maybe you want to help them, but you grow and get bigger. And maybe the ASCs, as you hear from Lou, are the answers. That's what's going to change because the insurance companies have more money than hospitals and they're going to drive it what they want to decrease the cost and maybe make you more important than a hospital. So if you're going to market yourself, you have to have a plan. You have to make a price. You have to promote it. You have to distribute it. You have to figure out how not to break the law. So here's a bad example. If your practice has a phone system, press one for this, press two for this, press three for this, and you maybe don't even have control. Would you like that? Try sometimes your own system to get to get to someone without knowing the secret number. If you can't get there, there's a problem. Fix even that and go to your chair, go to the head of your practice or whatnot. All the MDs in the administrative positions are now listening rather than telling the people above them what to do. That's a problem. So marketing talks about building your reputation. As you're young, maybe you build it as a surgeon. Maybe then you give back some of the research to say that you have value. It develops more patients. It generates new income. And then you have to protect yourself in a crisis. I want you to distinguish what I call needs and wants. So a product that is, as it says, differentiated, it can satisfy a customer's needs. The problem is there are many brands with the same offering, that's orthopedics, and you need to avoid being that orthopedic. The problem is that you'll see you're constantly pushing things out. You'll hear about social media. But the three ideas are, if you see here, there's a Camaro and there's an Aston Martin here. The insurance companies have hit us against each other and the patients. And what they want is to have you not be involved in their lives, so to speak, yet we have to do pre-authorizations and other things. So the patient really doesn't pay a lot. Imagine a system in South America where you have to hand the prosthesis to the doctor. You have to go shopping, figure out what you want, you hand the prosthesis to the doctor and say, I want you to put this into me. How about renting the OR room? Negotiating for that price rather than the hospital gives you OR time. So the public doesn't really have that pay and that co-pay, whatever it is, and it's much more than it used to be, still doesn't get them in the system, yet you read about all these places that give PRP for cash and it's changing the system. So you have to change too. But the one thing that you can do, and I will say, is our professionalism. Most customers have been burned, I couldn't get through to my physician, I couldn't do anything. You have to build that trust in the marketplace and know that you're loyal. That means, unfortunately, on a Sunday, maybe you answer the phone and not your resident, maybe not your PA, and that will distinguish yourself. If you want to figure out, should you advertise or do what's called public relations, I want you to know the difference in business school is advertising, you control the space, you buy it, it's really non-personal. It doesn't get you in the door. The public relations company will get you in there and when you have a problem, when you're in a group and one doctor does something that isn't right, they're the ones that tell it and you shoot that message. And that costs money, unfortunately. Hospitals do it. They do it for them. The question is, should you do it for you individually? And I don't have an answer, you have to feel comfortable in your own skin. But the point is, public relations, as it says, awares the stakeholders, the consumer that you're around. In New York City, where I am, you know, there's a hospital that spends over $100,000 a month to do it. And they get recognition. But the patient really doesn't know who the physician is that they come into. It's just a physician. It could be a resident that's operating on them. I encourage you that we need to distinguish ourselves, not kill each other, but we should. If the business world can do it, we can do it. So here you can see marketing. You can do it with Nike has done it. But hospitals, clinics, and medical centers are using it. It's the thing you got to do. You got to spend something and it's not in print. It's in other ways to do it. But you have to tell the story and that's what you can do. You each have interactions with your patients. You have to do it legally. There is HIPAA and you know those rules that you do it so you can't do it without a patient's consent. But find the patient that made a difference in their lives and you maybe were touched by it and tell the story. Let others know about the story. Here you can see that's the key in business. When you meet someone and it's engaging and you say, oh, they have this, whatever that is, that sense of being together, it's because they can tell a story about someone. I just saw him getting too old, someone for 18 years, and he came back. I didn't know why he came back. I asked him, how come you're coming back? You don't live here anymore. Oh, everything really went well and I really liked what you did for me then. These are the story tips. You have to know that you have a high quality program so you will. You'll educate yourself. The public's ready to and willing to go and the cost, that's the problem, the affordable. I'm in New York City. We'll talk about how to network in a sense. It has to be convenient. That's why Walgreens is on the corner of happy and healthy. They only buy corner stores, if you look. You have to choose that color, that mood, as I'll talk to you. Those are called the peas. You go to MBA school. They teach you about the peas. They drill it into you so that you're fulfilling every one of the peas. Anything is possible, I'm going to say it to you, to get the product, the place, the production, the promotion. Are we crazy in New York City? To be a good doctor in New York City after you've been in practice for 20 years, you have to leave insurance. You're not allowed to take insurance. I am not in anything any longer. I was for 23 years. I negotiate and when you have no money, I do it for free and I'm excited. 11% of my patients each year are free, like lawyers have to do it in communities. Maybe that's what we have to do too. The patients have to understand our value to change it because if we leave it the way it is, the Medicare cuts are just going to keep on going, keep on going, and keep on going. You'll see. This is what we do as doctors because we think we know each other. We go to committees. We talk until we're dead to each other. We vote. We can't figure it out. Then we reconsider most options and opinions and we know that administrators say, just get the committee and talk about it. It's not the way to go. You have to take some kind of survey. You have to be uncomfortable. Do the research. Know who your competition is. Respect your competition. See what they're doing different. Elevate yourself to that and then go back and elevate both of yourselves together and see if you can do that because it's only about you at the end of the day if we want. How do you do that? You got to do it in a meal. This is something German is called Schnecken. If you can't get together in a meal, it doesn't work. Let's have a dinner. That's what they do all the time in the world of business. They care. Build a team around yourself and build a team outside of it. Fine. Would you like to go to dinner? I know you and I compete in the same community. Let's talk about it. Please, let's get together because together there are enough patients in every community. Understand that value proposition it's called. There's a lot of distraction. There's anxious. I'm not going to make enough money. I'm not going to do this when I get home for my family. You have to understand your patients what they want. Don't attack your competitor and your consumer. Find out your front office. How many times do you say it's Friday afternoon and your front office person wants to go home? Be in your front office sometimes and say, you know what? I can't meet you today, but I'm thinking about tomorrow is two o'clock. All right. Not six weeks from now or try. I'll see you in five minutes from now. Never allow that six week appointment when they call. I don't care how busy you are. Figure it out. How to see that patient. It's a lot and it will change your practice. Do the research. Analyze the survey. Did you like coming into my office? Was my front office good? What did you think about mine? Do the Google repairs. You'll hear about it. Here's why people leave. 68% leave because of just no engagement on your part. You never saw them after the day after surgery. When was your first follow up visit? Was it the next morning? You can't do it. It's not because of complaints that weren't handled. You can see this. These are surveys that are real. It's about us and we need to as frustrated as we are, take it back and I'm excited to say you can do it. So I leave you as you come. You'll see that. Here's a few examples that you think you know when people go to the store to buy perfume. Do you think it's because of the smell? It's not. The business world has figured out that it's not the smell. It's sex. That's what they're selling because sex sells. The new exercise machine is not because it's the coolest one that people say I bought it. It's because they want to live longer. The end result of all of this as you can see is I need you to have our patients live longer and be healthier and that's what we do in orthopedics which is so great as opposed to other fields. So go sell it. You have to sell it like a used car with no motor inside that you are better and you're here for them. Don't say well I think I can get you better. I don't know there may be a complication. I'm excited to take you on and make you better because I've trained all those years to do that and I know I can make you better so come with me because emotionally that's about what orthopedics and that's what the patient wants to hear to be excited that you're the person. You're the one. In the end it's about gaining trust. The patient has to trust you. Try it. Try emailing a survey. Get results. Be always available and I think you'll see that by the way colors matter. I don't know why the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons picks red. Red is an angry color in the business world. If you go to a pediatric office it's a fish tank with blue and greens. They know that. That's what's inviting and calms the native person. So look around your own office. What colors have been used? The hospitals know if you're in a hospital base and private practice it's all available. It matters. Learn from hotel management. I will tell you you can go to certain hotels. I won't use them. You know the five star hotels. They walk around and hand you your package or your card or your credit card back. The others stand behind the desk and throw it at you. You need to be the one that goes around the desk and give you that service. It's going to take a lot from all of us to take back medicine. So I say we win if we're innovative disruptors. You're going to hear about ASCs because hospitals will be losing. I promise you that as I stand here today because insurance is much stronger and they're going to push for the lower cost. And education and keeping our information together is so important. And learn from the innovators. Don't reject them. Accept them. You have to do patient monitoring. Maybe it's going to be remote. You need high patient satisfaction rates because Medicare reimbursements are the same for in-person visits. So do it. Figure out how to get paid. I'm not asking you to lose money. It's emotional. I hopefully evoke the emotion. You're going to hear things now today. It's financial. It's political. And the only thing good about COVID-19 is it's forced all upon us to change. And I hope that we do change besides learning as we will today and share with each other how to do an ACL, how to take care of an overhead athlete, how to do a hip arthroscopy because this is where it's going to change for us hopefully in the future. I leave you. Everyone knows on this stage, this is my daughter at age four. Who knows what she did to hug this other person that she didn't know on the beach? Maybe the bathing suit looks similar for her. Who knows what was in her mush brain? But she did it. If we come together instead of what the insurance companies are trying to do and others to fragment us, we will win. And I'm excited to be your partner to learn what I've learned and hopefully learn from you. Thank you.
Video Summary
In this video, the speaker discusses the importance of understanding the business aspect of medicine and emphasizes the need for physicians to distinguish themselves from their competitors. They mention the concept of value-based healthcare and question whose value it is and what it achieves. The speaker encourages physicians to show their value and highlights the need for marketing and reputation building. They discuss the importance of building trust with patients and providing excellent customer service. The speaker talks about the impact of colors and ambiance in medical practices and suggests learning from hotel management. They emphasize the need for innovation and disruption in the medical field and mention the rise of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) as an alternative to hospitals. The video concludes with the message of unity among physicians to overcome challenges and achieve success.
Asset Caption
Kevin Plancher, MD, MPH
Keywords
business aspect of medicine
value-based healthcare
physicians
customer service
ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs)
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