Jeff Goldsmith, PhD, is an associate professor of public health sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and Richard Bajner is managing director of consulting firm Navigant Healthcare. In their op-ed, they argue hospitals must take proactive steps in order to ensure Medicare patients can be profitable to hospitals.
Here are five ways hospitals can maintain Medicare profitability.
1. Invest in data analytics to identify cost-sharing opportunities in both clinical and administrative work.
2. Build an efficient corporate services model by clarifying responsibilities at each level of administration and outsource certain functions when appropriate.
3. Tighten the purchasing process for medical technology and make sure all purchases are evidence-based and not rooted in physician relationships.
4. Blueprint care episodes to make sure treatments are standardized and cost-effective instead of haphazard and improvisational.
5. Institute clinical discipline to make sure physicians adhere to care protocols.
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