The Veralon Views blog is an extension of our partnership with leaders who are transforming the healthcare industry. Here, we share expert perspectives from our nationally recognized senior consulting team on issues that are key to the success of your organization.
It is increasingly important for hospitals and health systems to be proactive in enhancing and ensuring the quality of care in those post-acute care (PAC) facilities to which they refer patients. This influence is critical to preventing prolonged recovery periods with their associated increase in the cost of care. Hospitals also want to assure that […]
Fifteen years ago, the move toward adding stress testing, nuclear testing, and more to cardiology practices’ in-office offerings began to pick up speed as physicians realized they could increase practice revenue by as much as 15 percent by adding ancillary services. While reimbursement for many cardiac diagnostic services was significantly reduced in 2010, income from […]
What is the Primary Care First Program (PCF)? PCF is a voluntary 5-year CMS Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM) with two care models—one for “Advanced” primary care and one for high-need, seriously ill Medicare beneficiaries (Seriously Ill Population, or SIP). The latter is aimed primarily at providers who typically provide hospice or palliative services. Practices […]
If you attended the 2019 AHA Leadership Summit, you may have seen the iProtean, now part of Veralon camera crew asking healthcare leaders one simple question: “If you had one wish for healthcare, what would it be?” The iPro team has created a single video to share what was top-of-mind for healthcare leaders at the […]
If your ambulatory network is the only provider in town, and it is providing high-quality services at reasonable rates that meet the community’s needs, those characteristics will likely position your organization for success. But what happens when your organization is surrounded by competitors (including some of the new entrants) fighting for market share? How do […]
Healthcare megamergers are picking up steam, with the merger of Aurora Health Care and Advocate Health Care completed in 2018 and the merger of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health (now CommonSpirit Health) finalized earlier this year. Optum also completed their acquisition of DaVita Medical Group in June of this year. It’s a trend that […]
You want to reduce physician subsidies in your employed physician enterprise, and you have numerous initiatives to increase physician engagement under way. What matters, however, is not the number of physician engagement efforts, but how thoroughly they engage physicians in operations at the ground level. Veralon recently surveyed leadership at 30 physician enterprises with 11,000 […]
Physicians who generate significant income from procedural or technical/ancillary components of their practice have understandable concerns that an employment relationship with a health system or hospital will not be financially attractive. They realize that employment could mean losing the income from their usually profitable procedures and technical components, and so are uninterested in having their […]
Experts already predict another record-breaking year for private equity investment in physician practices, with 45 deals announced or closed in Q1 2019 alone. As private equity interest in ophthalmology and dermatology stays hot, and as other specialties capture investors’ attention and dollars, some health system leaders are offering an alternative to private equity capital by […]
Many conversations we have with hospital and health system executives about market growth strategies eventually turns to the topic of micro-hospitals — and for good reason. These facilities typically include a small-scale emergency department (ED), low-acuity surgery, and are often comprised of eight to 10 inpatient beds as well as additional observation beds (notably, these […]
