White Papers

• Featured White Paper: A Physician Practice Primer: Seven Steps to Profit from Adding New Ancillary Services: Adding an ancillary service such as physical therapy, imaging or ultrasound services to your medical practice may seem like an easy opportunity to capture revenue you are giving away in referrals to providers outside of your organization. While an ancillary service can boost profitability and improve your patient care offerings, its addition should not be taken lightly, says Stephen Dobias, principal on the Health Care Team of Indianapolis-based Somerset CPAs. Dobias suggests seven steps you should follow to determine whether the addition of an ancillary service is right for your medical practice and how to ensure the ancillary service gives you a strong return on your investment. (June 3, 2008)

  Note: This story features a sample proforma found at the end of the piece.

• Merging Two Centers – Can it Solve Certain Problems?: The merger of two centers with each other has not been a traditional strategy for surgery center growth over the past 10 years. Traditionally, merging two centers, absent certain motives such as redeeming certain physicians, has been viewed more as a negative than a positive. Mergers would often expand annual fixed costs and leave more physicians owning interests in two centers with less of a definite connection between the physicians that practice at the specific centers. For example, now you might have 40 physicians who have interests in two different centers instead of 20 physicians at each center who are highly tied to the centers. Notwithstanding this traditional hesitancy to merge centers, we are currently seeing a significant increased interest in the merger of surgical centers. This article walks through a specific case study of a merger of two centers and explains some of the reasons a merger can be attractive. (May 27, 2008)

• Hospital Leader Shares Insight on Current State of Hospitals and Health Care: In just eight years, BayCare Clinic has become an extremely profitable, high-quality, physician-owned organization serving the Green Bay, Wis., community. The chief medical officer for BayCare is Paul Summerside, MD, FAAEM, who also serves as the president of the board of managers for Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay. Dr. Summerside shares his thoughts on the major challenges currently facing hospitals, why many hospitals are struggling to find sustainable success and what still keeps him excited about healthcare. (May 27, 2008)

• Key Regulatory and Diligence Issues in Healthcare Real Estate Acquisitions: Healthcare regulatory diligence can be critical where a real estate investment trust (REIT) or other buyer acquires a portfolio of properties such as a medical office building from a hospital or other provider. (Feb. 08, 2008)

• Four Cornerstones to Strategic Planning for ASCs: This article provides insight into four different concepts to strategically attack and manage operations in a surgery center. (Jan. 31, 2008)

• Ambulatory Surgery Centers and Physician-Owned Hospitals: Ambulatory surgery centers and physician owned hospitals each offer similar advantages to consumers and to payors. (Jan. 31, 2008)

• Stark III – Nine Areas of Concern: The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), on July 2nd, published their thoughts relating to the impending Stark III Rules. In addition to certain specific proposed rules, CMS solicited comments on several areas of concern. (Jan. 18, 2008)

• CMS Issues Final Phase III Regulations: The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), on September 5th, published a final rule implementing Phase III of Part II of the Stark Act (the “Stark III Regulations”). (Jan. 17, 2008)

• Ambulatory Surgical Centers — An Analysis for the Next Five Years: The last several years have been an outstanding time for surgery centers. There has been explosive growth in the overall industry and in the number of surgery centers. There have also been a great number of developments that have been extremely positive for the surgery center business.

• Investing in Health Care — A Story of Political Clout, Successful Niches and Recurring Cycles: The U.S. health care industry is an estimated $1.8 trillion industry and accounts for more than $1 of every $7 spent in the nation’s economy. (Jan. 11, 2008)

• RE: Buying and Selling ASCs; Under Arrangements Structures; October 18th to 20th ASC Conference:  This letter discusses the current market pricing of transactions for ambulatory surgery centers and “under arrangements” models – are they legal or illegal? It also touches on a few other issues. (July 01, 2007)

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