Surgeons shun Floyd
Last week, a group of twenty-eight surgeons decided to partner with a different consulting/investment firm and build their own outpatient surgical center. This comes after nearly a year of work and thousands of dollars that Floyd spent trying to garner support to build a surgical center on the hospital campus.
This comes as another shocking blow to the potential future success of Floyd and should cause Commissioners and Board Members to be asking some tough questions.
The CEO had virtually assured the Board that the plan was a win-win for both sides and it was an equitable and fair arrangement for all parties involved. He assured the Board that the surgeons wanted the surgical center on-campus and therefore he had little concern they wouldn’t partner with Floyd.
The bottom line for the decision was not entirely financial as the CEO is going to be telling everyone. One of the major issues is and always has been trust. Physicians do not trust this administration and are extremely leery of entering into any financial business arrangement.
They are willing to partner with an outside entity, even unknown, rather than partnering with Floyd under this current administration. This surgical center will now compete directly with Floyd for procedures that have been almost entirely done at the hospital before this time.
This is just one more example of how more and more outpatient procedures are being lost. With the quarterly financials being on the downward trend, news like this cannot be good.
The CEO was reportedly angry with the news of the surgeon’s decision and even reportedly called one and accused him of being the ring-leader. This type of behavior certainly doesn’t lend itself to building any kind of trusting or workable relationship.
Serious questions need to be asked and some serious changes need to be made before it is too late!!
This comes as another shocking blow to the potential future success of Floyd and should cause Commissioners and Board Members to be asking some tough questions.
The CEO had virtually assured the Board that the plan was a win-win for both sides and it was an equitable and fair arrangement for all parties involved. He assured the Board that the surgeons wanted the surgical center on-campus and therefore he had little concern they wouldn’t partner with Floyd.
The bottom line for the decision was not entirely financial as the CEO is going to be telling everyone. One of the major issues is and always has been trust. Physicians do not trust this administration and are extremely leery of entering into any financial business arrangement.
They are willing to partner with an outside entity, even unknown, rather than partnering with Floyd under this current administration. This surgical center will now compete directly with Floyd for procedures that have been almost entirely done at the hospital before this time.
This is just one more example of how more and more outpatient procedures are being lost. With the quarterly financials being on the downward trend, news like this cannot be good.
The CEO was reportedly angry with the news of the surgeon’s decision and even reportedly called one and accused him of being the ring-leader. This type of behavior certainly doesn’t lend itself to building any kind of trusting or workable relationship.
Serious questions need to be asked and some serious changes need to be made before it is too late!!
posted by Anonymous at 6:25 PM
16 Comments:
"Ringleader" sounds pretty tame compared to the names you have called hospital administrators, county commisioners and fellow hospital board members. But then double standards in behavior have never been a problem for you.
Please give me a break - It about the money - it's always about the money. The deal with the other firm offers the doctors more of the profit - and more of the risk. You and runawaydoc really need to get a life.
"Crumble and disintegrate"??
How many years has the present administration been running the hospital? How much has it grown in that period of time? How has its financial and patient care position changed relative to its peers in that period? How has that administration managed to hold employee turnover to only 7% when health care workers have become the migrants of the 21st century?
You two malcontents would be laughable if you didn't use your positions to denigrate an outstanding healthcare facility because you have personal axes to grind.
I have concluded that Dr. E is nothing more than a crank and a scold with no real ideas to offer--just criticism of those who do the hard work of running a successful hospital in an extremely difficult period for healthcare providers.
Take a break and entertain us with your views on "Creation 'Science'".
Well, it appears we have hit a nerve. Haven't seen anonymous in a while.
Bob Woodward once said "Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity."
We are seeing the same thing here.
Accusing me of these problems won't make them go away. They are real and getting worse.
Burying your heads in the sand also won't fix them.
I think most of the bloggers know how much respect to give anonymity.
Anonymity, may not get much respect on the Blog. But if you read the comments under Quarterly
Financials you will see that Anonymous hit the nail on the head. When problems arise in any work place, one needs to look at Management. I love it when someone does not like the message they try to shoot the messenger.
Just two questions that have been asked repeatedly here and have NEVER been answered:
1. How come every time the hospital is negatively affected by challenges in the health care environment that are impacting every single hospital and nursing home, the blame for the negative outcome is ALWAYS the fault of Floyd's administration?
2. How is it that when you, Dr. E, are negatively affected by some of those same issues they are ALWAYS someone else's fault--the hospital's fault, or the government's fault or an insurance company's fault or the county commissioner's fault, or the hospital board's fault?
The fact is that these are enormously challenging times for everyone in healthcare and things are only going to get tougher, not easier. Blaming Floyd's administration for the fact that doctor's are opening their own outpatient facilities ignores the fact that this is happening EVERYWHERE, not just in Floyd County, Indiana. They are sprouting up like crabgrass as docs try to recover income lost to cost-cutting insurance companies.
The relationships between physicians and administration will be the success or downfall of a hospital. How these relationships are maintained is related directly to the administration.
I would be happy to compare my days in accounts recievables, collection percentages and other financial numbers with my peer group. We do a lot better than most primary care offices.
I take responsibility for morale, errors, practice management, employee turnover, vendor relations, patient satisfaction etc. and would be happy to discuss and compare these.
Our patient satisfaction numbers are outstanding even in this difficult environment. Floyds numbers are below the peer group and below the goals they set themselves. Who should be responsible?
I do not blame the administration for what the insurers pay, or how reimbursements are done from medicare and medicaid. That is a screwed up system for everyone in healthcare. In fact, Floyd has one of the best VP's in this area. He does a phenomenal job getting the most out of the insurance companies in the contracts. His counterparts just cannot seem to keep up their end of the job by collecting the money owed to the hospital.
It's funny how all these negative comments continue to ignore the facts. The numbers aren't made up.The events are really happening.
It goes without saying, maybe there should not have been so much spent on "eye candy" as one blogger called the new addition, (which another blogger stated was for the benefit of the staff) but more time and effort spent on what FMH is about PATIENTS and PHYSICIANS. Time will tell!
The cost of that "eye candy" was approved by Dr. E while he was on the board. And that board had to approve every annual budget and major expenditure.
Anyone reading his rantings would think the hospital is on the verge of collapse. In fact, if you would just take a look at it compared to other hospitals of similar size, especially other county hospitals, you would find one of the better managed and more financially secure facilities around.
Dr. E long ago made up his mind that he doesn't like the CEO and he works backward from that premise rather than looking at reality in any balanced way.
His attempts to blacken a management group of hard working, highly effective professionals hasn't worked. He couldn't get the hospital board to follow his lead and the county commisioners rewarded his undermining of the hospital by failing to reappoint him--something that rarely happens. So, just who is the one who is not an effective leader?
DiogenesTrainee,
Again, you are just wrong and misinformed. The job of the Board is to be able to look 5-10 years out in what the decisions will do to the hospital. Our fiduciary responsibilities entail many aspects of spending and budgets. What we approved every year was than supposed to be implemented by the leadership.
Just because others on the board continue to allow failure in the multiple goals doesn't make it right. But majority rules and this majority of the Board is allowing the hospital to decline. The hospital is not on the verge of failure this year or next, but the current trend and leadership is making it exceedingly difficult to survive in the next 10 years or so. I will still be practicing for this time and would like to have my hospital around. The CEO will no longer be here and the hospital's failure will not affect him.
People like you evidently cannot comprehend this type of forward thinking and planning. That is what the real problem is. Many others have not been reappointed for various reasons. Two of the three commissioners were held accountable for irresponsible actions and were not accustomed to being confronted. I did what was right and will continue to do so. I was never doing this for any other reason and they were told that up front.
In addition to the previous comment, the Board did approve the budget for the new addition. We also approved a time-line.
The budget for the addition is nearly a million dollars over and the timeline is months behind.
Again, who are you blaming for that?
That is what we spend more than a million dollars in salaries and benefits on our administration.
Would the dramatic world-wide increases in the cost of steel and other building materials have had anything to do with that? Did Hanson cause that too?
are the hospital's financials available anywhere on the internet?
The steel budget was not the cause and you know it.
That part of the building project was accounted for early in the project.
The hospital financials are not available yet on the internet, but we are working on that. Call the County Commissioners and tell them you would like to see them posted.
Dan, do you realize you could really be a champion for the hospital and community? Why not channel your hostility into positive leadership and impact changes in physician relations, hospital growth, clinical outcomes, financial solvency, while benefitting the employees you (supposedly) support? You're too sharp of a physician to waste your talents dragging down others, although I do agree with many of your points. People will respect you more as a positive and fair influence...but I suppose being a 'rebel' is probably more interesting...
Regarding the cost of the new facility at Floyd:
I have no idea what you think is the reason or reasons for the additional cost. All I know is that building materials were heavily impacted by Chinese competition for resources during the period of construction and I thought that might have been a factor.
Also, I did a little math. $1 million sounds like a lot of money, but on a $65 million project that amounts to less than a 2% variance from the original estimate. I would think that staying that close over a multi-year project would be considered pretty good. Jeez, Kentucky has spent 23 times that amount just to not paint the Kennedy bridge.
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