Physician practices across the nation are struggling to stay afloat amid rising costs and dropping revenue.
“If we can’t find ways to support physician practices, we may lose essential services, whether facility-based or outpatient specialties,” Clay Runnels, MD, chief physician executive at Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad, told Becker’s.
To help physician practices remain independent and operational in their respective regions, Ballad is using a three-pronged strategy.
The first part of that approach is direct employment for practices that cannot sustain operations and need the system to employ them or facilitate employment with another entity.
The second part is helping practices maintain their hospital-based services. Many practices have scaled back to outpatient-only care, but Ballad is hiring local hospitalists or working with academic partners to help keep hospital-based services alive.
The third aspect is meeting with private practice groups to ask what Ballad can do to support practice independence. In some cases, this means supporting staffing, call schedules, revenue cycle management or operational efficiencies. Ballad also helps connect practices with third-party tools that meet their needs.
“Our goal is to help private practices remain independent and viable,” Dr. Runnels said. “We don’t want to acquire or employ every practice. Our focus is preserving access to care while ensuring physician groups can continue operating independently.”
