The Independent Physician’s Blueprint: Ditch Corporate Controls To Reduce Medical Practice Burnout & Generate Wealth Beyond Residency Training

027 - Money Tree Series #6 - Why Using Surgery Centers are Better for You and Your Patients

Coach JPMD Season 1 Episode 27

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In this Money Tree Series Episode #6, Coach JPMD talks about the role played by Ambulatory Surgery Centers and their influence on the Money Tree. He discusses how they impact the flow of funding within the insurance and within the IPA. He talks about the relationship between surgery centers and various providers of care. The Money Tree Series Podcast episodes are geared toward helping physicians and other healthcare providers with the ins and outs of running a successful Medicare Advantage practice.  You can download the money tree diagram at www.coachjpmd.com/moneytree.


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Discover how medical graduates, junior doctors, and young physicians can navigate residency training programs, surgical residency, and locum tenens to increase income, enjoy independent practice, decrease stress, achieve financial freedom, and retire early, while maintaining patient satisfaction and exploring physician side gigs to tackle medical school loans.

Intro  0:00  
Welcome to the practice impossible podcast where your host, Jude Pierre MD, also known as Coach JPMD discusses medical practice topics that will guide you through the maze that is the business of medicine, and teach you how to increase profits and help populations live long. Your mission should you choose to accept is to listen and be transformed. Now, here's your host, Coach JPMD.

Coach JPMD  0:26  
You can't say that you don't like that sound. I love it. Because you know, it reminds you of when I'm selling things on eBay or offer up and you hear that sound and you know, monies are coming in. So welcome to the practice impossible podcast with your host, Coach JPMD. And I'm here to talk to you today about ambulatory surgery centers. Now, this is a continuation of our money tree series episodes, where I describe what you can do in your managed care practice to save money. And if you haven't downloaded the monetary diagram, I suggest that you do so so you kind of know where I'm going and how things are flowing. And you can do so at WWW.coachjpmd.com/moneytree and you can follow along there. I've released a couple of episodes already. And if you scroll down through the list of episodes, you'll see them marked differently with the money tree in the title of the podcast episode. So ambulatory surgery centers are medical facilities that provide the same day or outpatient surgical procedures. Some people call them surgery centers. They're usually certified by the government to provide medical services and usually surgical services. And one of the things that you can't have in a surgery center is a mix of function between a primary care physician's office and a surgical suite. Another thing that you can't have is that the Ambulatory Surgery centers cannot share the same space with hospital outpatient surgery departments. So there are essentially standalone surgical facilities that sit in communities that perform services and Medicare Advantage companies will contract with ambulatory surgery centers for many different reasons. But you know, the main reason is to help save, save money save costs. In caring for patients. A lot of times surgery centers are managed patients and they have certain lot shorter stays, there's less complications or infection complications. And you know, as we talk about money in our Money Tree series, they also save money. So when you look at hospital procedures versus procedures done at a military surgery centers, some of the costs could could be double. So I remember receiving a referral authorization request from a specialist or an OBGYN in the community. And it was for a gynaecological procedure that they're requesting to have the procedure done at a hospital. And I denied the procedure. And one might say, well, you know, why are you denying procedures at hospitals? Well, as a primary care physician, I'm supposed to be managing a patient, not only on the medical side, but also the financial side, in a managed care environment. And some might say the physician shouldn't be involved in that. But I say I say differently, because if you look at the the monies that are distributed to your managed care panel to manage your patient population, there are some patients that are much sicker, that may need those funds that may be funneled or or spent on surgical procedures performed at hospitals, that could be going to patients who need transportation to the office. So that one procedure, I call the or I had the office call the gynecologists'. And their response to me was that the surgeon didn't have privileges at any of the local ambulatory surgery centers, which was hard for me to believe. But I guess if a surgeon is in a community where they perform most of their procedures at the hospital, I could certainly understand why they would be more convenient for them to have all their procedures done in one place. But I think specialists in this day and age, the need to understand what and how this can benefit the patients as well as benefit in your primary care referral base.

So one of the things that we like to do is partner with specialists who, who have privileges, privileges at surgery centers so that we can save overall healthcare costs. And that's something that we do and something that I think is important for physicians to know coming out of residency and to understand how doing certain things at different procedures or different locations can affect that that payment tree. And I think as physicians, we are leaders in healthcare and we're leaders of our patients, leaders of her our team members, and leaders in the community as a whole. And when you look at the cost of sigmoidoscopy is performed at hospitals, outpatient departments, according to the health care costs Institute, it's an online resource that I actually found, and I'll share the resource link at the bottom of the podcast but sigmoidoscopy is performed at the hospitals can cost on average $1,285 It's $1,285. Well, if performed at the office where a surgery center it could cost on average about $174. So think about the cost of the overall health care expenditures, when more procedures are performed at the hospitals. And, you know, I will say that if the procedures are done at the hospital that takes away, especially routine procedures, but, you know, that takes away from patients who are really sick in the hospital that need bigger procedures that need the resources of hospital system. So I think before you schedule things that can be done an ambulatory surgery centers at hospitals, it's certainly important to look at how that affects overall cost of care, and essentially how you know, affect the payment tree, because that's what it's all about, right? It's about looking at ways of performing cost effective care. 

And this shouldn't mean that you are skimping out on care and performing procedures at the surgery center that shouldn't be performed at surgery centers. But it's something to consider seriously considering the overall cost of health care, and how we can improve patient care. Decrease your practice stress by potentially increasing your your referral base with physicians who understand the benefits of this effective nature of managing care, and potentially generate more income for you. So as you know, most of the Money Tree series episodes are shorter, and are really geared towards helping you understand how to increase revenue and decrease your stress by lowering costs of healthcare and providing cost effective care, in ways that you may not understand or me may not have been taught in the past. It's not all about seeing tones of patients a day, 20-30-40 patients a day. It's about managing your patient population and providing cost effective care. And that's what we do in managed care. And I hope these series will help you understand that a little bit better. Now if you want to hear different topics, or if you want to follow us on Instagram, you can do so at coachjpmd.com You can also scroll down in your favorite podcast listening app, and leave a review. Let us know what you think. We're in the process of getting some resources together that will help you understand how you can retire early. I'm hoping to be able to show you guys how to do so in 15-20 years or less. I think that is possible when you do the right things early on in life. So that's not like what I did in life. So if I can show you things that I wish I could have done 20 years ago, I certainly love to share that with you. And that's that's coming up coming up soon. So like I said the review and we hope to see you in two weeks. Share with your friends and be safe out there.