Top 3 Challenges
Nearly every major healthcare publication is reporting on the recent survey that polled CEO’s around the country. The results revealed that doctors ranked No. 2 on hospital chief executive officers’ list of most significant challenges for 2006.
This result ousted the nation’s chronic shortage of healthcare workers from CEOs’ top three concerns for the first time in the American College of Healthcare Executives’ fifth annual poll.
This should not come as any surprise to anyone who has followed this blog for the past 2 years. I have repeatedly stated that the relationship challenges between hospitals and physicians are significant and there needs to be a paradigm shift.
Financial challenges ranked as the top concern for CEOs surveyed despite the industry’s record revenue of $544.7 billion and $28.9 billion aggregate profit in 2005.
Thomas Dolan who is the president of the American College of Healthcare Execs said that “hospitals and physicians both face financial pressures and will need to find new types of joint ventures to offset their respective risks and financial losses.”
Doctors’ incomes haven’t fared as well as other professionals in recent years, he said. Dolan cited a June report by the Center for Studying Health System Change that found physicians’ inflation-adjusted income fell 7% between 1995 and 2003. Meanwhile, U.S. professional and technical workers’ real income rose 7%, according to federal labor data.
Partnering with physicians is the surest way to maintain a successful hospital. Operating costs, Medicaid reimbursement and bad debt continue to be the three most troublesome financial challenges and hospitals and physicians need a collaborative effort to survive.
This result ousted the nation’s chronic shortage of healthcare workers from CEOs’ top three concerns for the first time in the American College of Healthcare Executives’ fifth annual poll.
This should not come as any surprise to anyone who has followed this blog for the past 2 years. I have repeatedly stated that the relationship challenges between hospitals and physicians are significant and there needs to be a paradigm shift.
Financial challenges ranked as the top concern for CEOs surveyed despite the industry’s record revenue of $544.7 billion and $28.9 billion aggregate profit in 2005.
Thomas Dolan who is the president of the American College of Healthcare Execs said that “hospitals and physicians both face financial pressures and will need to find new types of joint ventures to offset their respective risks and financial losses.”
Doctors’ incomes haven’t fared as well as other professionals in recent years, he said. Dolan cited a June report by the Center for Studying Health System Change that found physicians’ inflation-adjusted income fell 7% between 1995 and 2003. Meanwhile, U.S. professional and technical workers’ real income rose 7%, according to federal labor data.
Partnering with physicians is the surest way to maintain a successful hospital. Operating costs, Medicaid reimbursement and bad debt continue to be the three most troublesome financial challenges and hospitals and physicians need a collaborative effort to survive.
posted by Anonymous at 6:22 AM
2 Comments:
Here's another bit of info as regards physicians' financial problems. Recent surveys have shown that the average reimbursement for physicians in 2006 fell 17% below what was reimbursed in 2002. It was 36% lower than what was reimbursed in 2004. Nationally, in 2006, commercial insurance allowables for an office visit were less than those allowed by Medicare, making Medicare now the best insurance available. Pretty hard to swallow when one is paying over $455/month for a single commercial policy. Not hard to imagine where all that insurance premium is ending up.
If you've seen Anthem's Corporate Campus in Indianapolis, or a list of Humana's corporate holdings, the answer where the premium $$$ are winding up is fairly obvious.
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