Tool: Physician Practice Assessment and Checklist for Optimization
The following assessment and checklist can help healthcare leaders consider various strategies and tactics for improving medical group efficiency and performance.
Physician Practice Assessment
The following assessment can help you determine if your medical groups are running at peak efficiency:
- Do our employed physicians have more than 1,500 active patients?
- Have we benchmarked our ambulatory staff to physician ratios?
- Have we benchmarked each of our employed physician’s productivity according to industry standard benchmarks per subspecialty? Are the majority performing above the 75th percentile measured by work relative value units (RVU) per physician FTE?
- Are our physicians incented solely on productivity or collections? Or have we started incorporating value-based outcomes such as patient satisfaction or cost?
- Does our complement of physicians support our long-term organizational goals?
- Have we recently reviewed our sites of service? How prepared are we for transitioning care from inpatient to outpatient settings?
Source: Huron Healthcare: Ten Overlooked Opportunities for Significant Performance Improvement and Cost Savings.
Checklist: Opportunities for Optimal Practice Operations
The following checklist highlights the essential components that a physician practice needs to reach peak performance. Efficient practice design drives down operating costs and increases patient throughput while maintaining or increasing physician satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and patient safety.
Operations Efficiency
(v)
__Scheduling optimization
__Productivity benchmarking
__Cost structure benchmarking
__Management process control
__Span of control rationalization
__Referral management
__Patient access optimization
__Staff training
Capacity Management
(v)
__Strategic partnerships
__Appropriate contract services
__Facilities utilization
__Revenue growth
__Capacity analysis
__Market share analysis
__New service lines
Financial Stability
(v)
__Physician compensation
__Revenue and expense control
__Non-provider labor control
__Non-labor control
__Government program participation (340B, PBC, FQHC, ACO)
__Downstream revenue management
Clinical Effectiveness
(v)
__Governance and bylaws
__Performance dashboard
__Mid-level provider integration
__Downstream service management
__Member selection and retention
__Quality management
__Patient outcome management
Source: Huron Healthcare: Building a High Performance Physician Group Practice: Four Key Post Reform Challenges.