Do Physician Leaders Value Top Quality, Low-Cost Healthcare?
By - Physician leaders are actively advocating to more tightly weave value into the fabric of the healthcare industry via a simple yet intricate concept: keep care quality high and cost low.
According to a new survey from the American Association for Physician Leadership and the Navigant Center for Healthcare Research and Policy Analysis, over 90 percent of nearly 2,400 surveyed physician leaders confirm the lowering of unnecessary care lacking evidence is of “high” or “very high” concern. Similarly, over 90 percent of survey respondents also concur increased transparency regarding quality is of “high” significance.
Physician leaders are perhaps the most knowledgeable and therefore valuable weavers of the healthcare web. As is the story with most other professions, perhaps those who are at the top of their game more likely execute keener advantageous management and operational decisions. “Physician leaders have the clinical insights on what constitutes good, strong patient care. They have the insights on how to make the system work effectively to deliver that care,” states Peter Angood, President and CEO of the American Association for Physician Leadership, within a press release last week. “As a result, compared with non-physician leaders, physicians who are well-educated with leadership and management training often have the better insights on health care and how to run it better,” Angood adds.
Echoing the aforementioned numbers, regarding physician leaders’ thoughts on patient "adherence" to treatments, over 90 percent maintain “adherence” is also of “high” or “very high” importance.
More training efforts are needed to effectively implement such "adherence" among the healthcare space, says Paul Keckley, Managing Director at Navigant, within the press release. “Doctors hold more sway over patient behavior than any other force in the health care system, and yet they do a lousy job of both measuring and monitoring adherence,” he adds. Keckley says if there really is a level of seriousness about the idea of adherence, "there would be no question when an individual leaves the office that they know precisely what they are supposed to do."
Additionally, Keckly has spoken with RevCycleIntelligence.com via a series of personal interviews about his perspective on accountable care organizations and the Affordable Care Act.
Selected highlights from survey results
Here is a brief selection of some key survey data generating top responses:
- “The Affordable Care Act has more good in it than bad.” Twenty-two percent “strongly agree” with this statement.
- “The medical profession is less attractive as a career option today than it was when I started my career.” Thirty percent “strongly agree” with this idea. Thirty-eight percent “agree.”
- “Medical training is archaic. It needs to be updated to accommodate new models, technologies and market forces.” Twenty-six percent “strongly agree.” Forty-eight percent “agree.”
- “I could save money for my patients without compromising their quality and safety if protected from medical liability.” Thirty-three percent “strongly agree.” Forty-three percent “agree.”
High quality and low costs not always an easy task
As RevCycleIntelligence.com reported, the art of maximizing revenue capture with low costs and high quality involves a slew of challenges such as documentation hindrances leading to missed charges. As a closing thought, consider keeping expenses low and quality high is perhaps more about the need to address expenses on an ongoing basis instead of focusing on more of an isolated snapshot approach, as RevCycleIntelligence.com wrote, maintaining the simple notion that perhaps merely breaking even is indeed a commendable objective in itself.
