Tool: Physician Practice Assessment and Checklist for Optimization

The following assessment and checklist can help healthcare leaders consider various strategies and tactics for improving medical group efficiency and performance. 

Physician Practice Assessment

The following assessment can help you determine if your medical groups are running at peak efficiency: 

• Do our employed physicians have more than 1,500 active patients?
• Have we benchmarked our ambulatory staff to physician ratios?
• Have we benchmarked each of our employed physician’s productivity according to industry standard benchmarks per subspecialty? Are the majority performing above the 75th percentile measured by work relative value units (RVU) per physician FTE?
• Are our physicians incented solely on productivity or collections? Or have we started incorporating value-based outcomes such as patient satisfaction or cost?
• Does our complement of physicians support our long-term organizational goals?
• Have we recently reviewed our sites of service? How prepared are we for transitioning care from inpatient to outpatient settings?

Source: Huron Healthcare: Ten Overlooked Opportunities for Significant Performance Improvement and Cost Savings.   

Checklist: Opportunities for Optimal Practice Operations

The following checklist highlights the essential components that a physician practice needs to reach peak performance. Efficient practice design drives down operating costs and increases patient throughput while maintaining or increasing physician satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and patient safety.

Operations Efficiency

(v)

__Scheduling optimization

__Productivity benchmarking

__Cost structure benchmarking

__Management process control

__Span of control rationalization

__Referral management

__Patient access optimization

__Staff training

Capacity Management

(v)

__Strategic partnerships

__Appropriate contract services

__Facilities utilization

__Revenue growth

__Capacity analysis

__Market share analysis

__New service lines

Financial Stability

(v)

__Physician compensation

__Revenue and expense control

__Non-provider labor control

__Non-labor control

__Government program participation (340B, PBC, FQHC, ACO)

__Downstream revenue management

Clinical Effectiveness

(v)

__Governance and bylaws

__Performance dashboard

__Mid-level provider integration

__Downstream service management

__Member selection and retention

__Quality management

__Patient outcome management

Source: Huron Healthcare: Building a High Performance Physician Group Practice: Four Key Post Reform Challenges.