Spine surgeons and hospitals have different operational goals, but there are ways they can communicate stronger and more effectively to reach common ground.
For Andrew Chung, MD, of Sun City West, Ariz.-based Banner Del Webb Medical Center, talking to administrators and thinking about their goals helped him launch an endoscopic spine program at the hospital.
He said he has administrator support and went into conversations with an understanding of their financial goals to make his case.
"We're not taught how to speak business or sit in a room with administrators and convince them financially that something makes sense," he said. "We only see the clinical side of things. But the reality is many administrators don't have a surgical background and they don't know these things. You have to be able to speak their language and communicate in their terms why these things are potentially beneficial."
But the conversation has to go both ways for everyone to have success. Without common goals or mutual understandings, there can be friction between spine surgeons and hospitals.
Rifts can also happen as hospitals do quality metric measures, Rachel Bratescu, MD, said.
"This scrutiny often lacks recognition of an adult deformity surgeon, for example, who performs high risk and more complex cases, which should not be weighed in the same manner as a surgeon who performs primarily more straightforward one- and two-level degenerative cases," Dr. Bratescu said. "Understanding the surgical indications and mutual understanding of pre-operative risk and expectations can help better align hospital and surgeon goals."
The one value that hospital-spine surgeon conversations especially need is transparency, according to Lali Sekhon, MD, PhD.
"It's hard to sit as partners at a table when all the information is not shared except as a 'need to know' basis," Dr. Sekhon said. "How much revenue we bring in is a starting point. No one wants us to know because it gives us leverage in negotiations. Lack of transparency allows hospitals to ask for more concessions."