healthcarefinancenews.com – The quality of a hospital or health system is usually linked to patient outcomes, not to administrative or financial efficacy. But smooth interactions between patients and the hospital business office should also be viewed as critical to an organization’s quality, says one CFO.
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, based in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., has been recognized as a “Top Children’s Hospital” by The Leapfrog Group seven times since 2006. The health system has been acknowledged as a model for quality and efficiency in patient care.
While justifiably proud of the hospital’s patient outcomes, Alec Mahmood, chief financial officer at Minnesota Children’s, thinks his finance team must view itself as an essential component of the quality patient experience.
Editorial director Richard Pizzi spent a few minutes with Mahmood discussing how the finance department can contribute to hospital quality, particularly in the face of a changing healthcare reimbursement system.
Is there something unique to the culture of Minnesota Children’s that drives quality, and if so, what does that mean to the finance team?
Everyone is very proud of the quality indicators and benchmark reports that compare us to other children’s hospitals. Even within the finance world, the staff is well aware of where we rank in quality data. The outcomes are one thing, but interactions between patients and the business office is very important to us. I come from the for-profit world. In that environment, I would want to see proof that we could be reimbursed and cover our costs for new procedures and treatments. But here, we need to prove first and foremost that there is greater efficacy for treatments. We believe that if the quality is there and the outcomes are there, the reimbursement will be there.
If we have to generate good outcomes for expensive procedures, I have no problem going back to the payers and saying ‘here are the outcomes and what we’ve done for your members – look at how the quality has improved.’ Payers are responsive to quality data. If you can show the outcomes are better, payers can take that data back to their employer groups.
How is managing reimbursement and controlling costs different at a children’s hospital than at a standard acute care facility?
You have almost no self-pay at children’s hospitals. Almost every kid is going to qualify for some form of insurance or Medicaid. On the supply side, I would say that there are fewer options for hospital supplies than there are on the adult side. As a result, it’s easier to adhere to a formulary when purchasing some supplies. There are still choices, of course, and physicians have some leeway. But purchasing decisions go back to quality, and I think we do a good job of controlling costs.
Sumber: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/finance-team-key-hospital-quality
{module [153]}