Physician preference items such as implants, stents, and pacemakers can account for as much as 60 percent of a hospital's supply expenditures. As chief users of a hospital's most expensive supplies, physicians are essential partners in any effort to achieve supply cost savings.
Engaging Physicians for Supply Chain Savings, a new HFMA educational report, describes strategies for securing physician buy-in on changes to the supply chain. The report, which was sponsored by Amerinet, describes real-life strategies that hospitals have relied on to meet physician needs while still achieving supply chain savings.
Seek Physician Input
Loma Linda University Medical Center in California sought early input from the surgeon who performed the most total joint replacement surgeries when it wanted to standardize pricing for total knee and hip joint implants. The surgeon then helped the medical center win general physician support of a new pricing plan, with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An article in the April 2009 issue of HFMA's Healthcare Cost Containment newsletter describes how the Georgia Heart Center used physicians' input and support to standardize supplies, reduce inventories, and establish tighter vendor controls. As a result, the heart center saved $1.7 million in supply costs in a single year.
Show Physicians the Numbers
Physicians are scientists and appreciate meaningful data when they are asked to consider making a change. Hospitals should think carefully about what data they use and how they communicate that information to physicians.
Fletcher Allen Health Care provides physicians with financial and clinical data that comes from both internal and external sources. Internal data might include the hospital's cost per surgical case or an individual surgeon's cost per case. These data are then benchmarked against aggregate external data from the hospital's group purchasing organization or another third-party decision support organization.
This year's ANI: The Healthcare Finance Conference offers a session on "Engaging Physicians through Analytics and Identification," which will discuss how to develop robust and credible data sets for your medical staff, and also how to identify and mentor physician champions within your organization. Learn more and register today.
Allow for Give and Take
Physicians may prefer certain supplies for a variety of reasons. They may have been trained on a procedure using a certain implant, or may rely on the expertise of a vendor rep to help with preoperative preparations. Changing a supply without taking these factors into account may adversely affect a physician's practice methods, productivity, and revenue-generating potential.
Physicians should also never feel that the hospital always turns down their requests for new supplies. Loma Linda University Medical Center has developed a fast-track procedure for product requests where the cost is the same or lower than the product in use. The procedure helps send the message that the hospital's goal is not to stop physicians from using new products.
Give and take also recognizes the human side of a mutually dependent business relationship between hospitals and physicians. Physicians bring patients to the hospital. If the hospital supports physicians' desire to deliver high-quality outcomes for their patients, everyone stands to benefit.
Participate in Our Revenue Cycle Poll
We encourage all HWYTK readers to take part in an ongoing poll of questions relating to revenue cycle issues. The poll, which is sponsored by Craneware, asks a new question each week on such topics as chargemaster management, pricing, and revenue compliance. Visit the polling site each week to submit your answer.
And remember to visit HFMA's web site for answers to your healthcare business questions.