Happy Surgeons. Happy Patients: Your Keys to Elective Surgical / Health Tourism Service Line Profitability

Attention hospitals and free-standing outpatient surgical facilities. Hold up a mirror and say,

"We are the canvas, not the art."

I've been an internationally-recognized, successful consultant, administrator and a director of business development for surgical service lines, Hospitals, ASCs and integrated surgical and medical provider networks for over 40 years. My work has dotted the globe in 120 countries. My strategy meets and exceeds expected results. It is really very simple. It boils down to a matter of perspective: Are you the art or the canvas?

When you tell your brand story, what perspective do you use? Are you the featured artwork or the canvas that supports it? So many hospitals and health facilities suffer from identity crisis. They message the public, their medical staff and third-party payor networks as if their bricks, mortar and technologies (or their prices) are the artwork and their surgeons and patients are "incidental to" their raison d'etre. (In French, the most important reason or purpose for someone or something's existence.)

That's wrong on many levels. This identity crisis leads them down the incorrect marketing and advertising and marketing strategies, the wrong brand messages to the public, the wrong product development and promotion, and ultimately, this incorrect identity constrains growth and revenue and places them needlessly at long-term financial and sustainable risks.

Happy Surgeons. Happy Patients. The Key to Surgical /Health Tourism Profitability

Surgeons can rarely operate outside a licensed health facility. Some have their own operating theaters integrated into their practice location. It is rare. Very rare. Mostly surgeons require the establishment of privileges at a hospital and/or an ambulatory surgery center. They may or may not be a shareholder in the facility.

What makes a surgeon happy?

In a nutshell: To be in theater fixing broken parts of the human body. In control. Equipped with the tools and technologies they like to use. Assisted by staff they trust and feel a common goal: the betterment of their patients. "With all due respect, please leave me alone and let me operate."

In a perfect world, would that we could.

But healthcare, in the USA and abroad isn't a perfect world. Not anywhere. This I can say with 100% professional certainty.

I know, because I've inspected health delivery systems up close and operationally, administratively, financially, technologically, and critically analyzed thousands of surgical facilities in more than 120 countries. And in the USA in 49 states and four inhabited territories. (Alaska, Vermont, and Montana, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa are the ones missing the check marks.) Many are still my clients so it is easy to remain informed.

Think of your facility as the canvas; not the art

Facilities are wholesale suppliers to the health delivery system.

• They are a place to store equipment that's needed to perform surgery.
• They are the place where the staff is trained and prepared to assist the surgeon work their magic.
• They are the place that invests in the technologies, prepares the aseptic setting to afford the patient a safe and secure environment of care.
• They are place that welcomes the patient and their companion or significant other who will provide support.
• They are the place where the largest expenses are incurred by the patient or a third-party payer (government, commercial insurer, trust, or association payer.)
• They are the gallery or the museum of art; not the art itself, nor the artists that create the artistry. They hire the docents, the curators, the administrators of the operations of the gallery. They procure the technologies that are used within the gallery or museum to operate the gallery or museum. They may "employ" "contract with" (locum tenans) or otherwise align with and privilege independent "artists" who will display their works of art there for admiration or for sale.
• The wholesaler differentiates its brand by finding the most talented artists in the genres (specialties) they feature, and making the services, (diagnostic consultations, 2nd opinions, and/or medical treatments and surgical procedures) of the artists available to the public, to employers, unions, associations and insurers or government financing program authorities and to individual consumers.
• The wholesaler can negotiate on behalf of the artists, take their overrides, and administer contracts, perform related services (billing, appeals, collections, even financing and wholesaler branded insurance programs) but all roads lead to the same point with a happy doctor: "With all due respect, please leave me alone and let me operate. I'll be by to pick up a check for payment in full when I emerge from the surgeons' locker room for today's work. That should be about 2:30pm. Will the check be ready then? Oh, and I'll bill for my consultation follow up appointments, my post op services, and my in office services myself. Thanks." That's what I mean by a happy surgeon.

Happy Patients

Happy patients are those with reasonable, met or exceeded expectations.

1. Did I get better? (Results achieved)
2. Were there no complications? (Mitigated risks, HAIs, Never events, etc.)
3. Was the price the amount quoted? (Transparency)
4. Are they in my health insurance network? (Ease of transactional,pre-authorized,navigation)
5. Was the price in line with value received? (Fairness, value based)
6. Was the facility easy to navigate on arrival? (Facility design)
7. Is there a story to be told about my patient experience that makes me look wise, prudent and informed among my peers?

Tell a story that resonates with consumers with the consumer/patient/parent or their primary caregiver featuring them as the protagonist. Don't feature your accreditation, your price, or your technology as the reason for telling the story. People want to hear about success.

Whose success is it? It's the artists' successes that the patients are happy about that are the elements to the story. The almost invisible knee surgery scar. The return to productivity and lifestyle as fast as possible, the non-opioid pain management, the ability to drive themselves and regain their independence, their story to tell that their surgery was robotic-assisted, or laser or GPS-technology guided, that their implant was 3D printed, that their new tissue came from stem cells. None of these are stories featuring the wholesaler, itself. But the wholesaler deserves mention and recognition for being there to support and make available the access to the artists.

Happy Wholesaler Administrators

The message of this article is not to say that the facilities aren't worth also making happy and successful. How an administrator or shareholder is made happy is to have several things happen:

• A good, solid reputation of safety, quality, and pleasant business transactions earned
• Knowledge of ones costs so that pricing and margins maintain integrity
• Adequate cash on hand and adequate supplies on hand. No bills in arrears or accounts on credit hold. No embarrassing glitches because of slow payments, non-payments or other scandalous matters to contend with.
• Surgeons who respect and appreciate the staff, work well with colleagues and competitors, respect the administrators. Everyone getting along professionally, working hard and playing hard together. Supportive. Collaborative. Pulling the wagon in the same direction, at the same time and smiling most of the way.
• Net Profit and the ability to return value to shareholders and the community. Not for profit? Okay, the ability to return margins to sustain mission. It's all about what's leftover to keep growing, thriving, expanding, innovating, modernizing and attracting new additional artists with a similar ilk.
• Happy payers contracted. The ones who pay fair prices, timely, accurately, without hassles. The ones who give all competitors a fair shot at true competition. Good contracts that the administrator is eager to renew and build long term relationships for mutual gain in service to customers. It doesn't matter if payers are employers, insurers, associations or independent consumers. They are ALL PAYERS. They are customers. They are also valued business partners; not adversaries.

About the Expert

Dr Maria Todd is the expert that drives profitability for hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and surgeons in the USA and over 120 countries. Her clients give her recommendations on social platforms that consist of a single word: "Results".

If your healthcare facility or medical/surgical/behavioral health or rehabilitation practice might benefit from some expert assistance with business development, contract analysis, problem-solving, or renegotiation, or you need to add some new and innovative services, additional service lines, or packaged surgical services into transparently bundled prices, speak with Maria to learn if she might be able to help you.