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The healthcare industry is in the midst of a major transformation; healthcare reform will exacerbate physician shortages and will create access issues for many patients.
Spine surgeons will face many obstacles in the New Year and finding balance in a time of change will be most important for spine surgeons in private practice. Here are some top concerns for spine surgeons moving forward:
Lower Reimbursements
For most spine surgeons private practice offers the autonomy physicians appreciate but conversely there is a lot more red tape. Decreasing third party insurance reimbursement are a driving force for physicians joining with larger groups or abandoning private practice all together. Spine surgeons are running into a lot of problems with insurance coverage and this causing a lot of headaches for patients and physicians. Lower reimbursements mean less income for the practice and this will be challenging in 2015.
Increasing Operational Costs
Spine surgery is much prevalent today than it was 20 or 30 years ago so cost control is another issue facing spine surgeons in 2015. Balancing costs has and will always be a challenge. Retaining spine surgeons in private practice will become more complicated since a private practice can't afford to pay a surgeon $500,000 per year if their net collections are less than that. Similarly, practices are paying more money for medical billing and coding due to the increasingly complicated nature of health insurance.
Physician Shortages
A physician shortage in private practice is worrisome heading into the New Year. A lot of private practice physicians are switching over to hospital employment for financial stability and the work/life balance it affords. By the year 2020 there will be a shortage of approximately 91,000 physicians and staying ahead of the impending shortage would mean offering competitive salaries to ensure retention which can be challenging. Private practices have the unique opportunity to choose where they want to perform surgeries and what types of cases they want to work on but it is becoming harder to attract physicians to private practice opportunities.
Staff Retention
As a private practice physician you may not be able to offer staff the same competitive salary they may receive in a hospital. Establishing an organized way to evaluate and give raises based on job performance will be one way to retain quality employees. The more you recognize their work, the more employees will stay with your practice long-term.