The healthcare industry is undergoing tumultuous change, and providers must ensure they are delivering quality and affordable care to succeed in the new value paradigm.
Mark Khorsandi, DO, of Houston-based West Grey Center for Special Surgery, offers insight on key business trends impacting his practice.
Question: As healthcare transitions toward the value-based payment model, how is your practice measuring outcomes and what are the remaining challenges for physicians?
Dr. Mark Khorsandi: We probably should do more to measure outcomes. Right now we have a patient satisfaction survey and quality measures in place at both our office and surgery center. I don't know if it necessarily reflects how we will deliver better healthcare at a value than what we do. One reason the value-based payment model is hard to apply to our practice is that we are small compared to institutions. Our outcomes are pretty consistent and predictable. Our costs other than implants are under control, and we limit waste as much as we can. Our ASC does not accept Medicare either; our practice is capped at about 15 percent volume for Medicare.
Q: How do you maintain and grow a strong patient base?
MK: This is always challenging. Our main focus is on relationships with primary care doctors and emergency/urgent care centers. We do a fair amount of direct patient marketing which helps maintain the base, create awareness of who we are and third most successful way of getting patients is word of mouth. Reviews nowadays are very important too. Patients will select doctors based on other patients' experiences.
Q: What are key business trends in your orthopedic practice?
MK: What's concerning is almost every physician/orthopedist is being bought up by one of the major hospitals. There are fewer and fewer physicians that remain independent. The main reason is the amount of money they can generate through each patient encounter/ancillary services. I see a lot of merger and acquisitions of ASCs in Houston as well. We obviously are dealing with patients with higher deductibles each year, and decreased reimbursement per case, [which is] nothing new.
Learn more from Dr. Khorsandi at the 24th Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs in October 2017. Click here for more information.
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