News Briefs
News Briefs
Book helps diagnose health of your practice
Practice Marketing & Management board member Reed Tinsley, CPA, has released his latest book, Performing an Operational and Strategic Assessment of a Medical Practice. Co-written by Joey Havens, a colleague of Tinsley’s at the Houston-based Horne CPA Group, the book guides readers through the essentials of diagnosing the health of a medical practice.
In order to survive and thrive, says Tinsley, practices need to perform at maximum efficiency. That means knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your organization.
The book, published by John Wiley & Sons, retails for $89. Tinsley is also the author of The 1999 Medical Practice Management Handbook. For more information on his book, contact Tinsley at (713) 975-1000.
Agencies team up to form measurement council
As part of an effort to prevent overlapping and conflicting requirements, the American Medical Association’s accreditation program, AMAP; the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; and the National Committee for Quality Assurance have formed the Performance Measurement Coordinating Council (PMCC).
According to Robert Mills, spokesman for the Chicago-based AMA, the group hopes to ensure that performance measurements are set by the medical community, not the private sector, and that the efforts of the three individual organizations don’t put conflicting requirements on medical practices, hospitals, or other health care organizations.
"The benefit is that we will be able to provide a feedback loop to physicians through peer review," he says. "We are getting in on the ground floor of this and will be able to direct national efforts to create performance measurement systems."
In the future, the PMCC will merge the participating organizations’ expert panels in selected areas, such as cancer care. The first step was taken when the PMCC appointed Carolyn Cocotas as staff director. Previously with the Health Care Financing Admin istration in Washington, DC, she led efforts to develop the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set.
A complete list of panel members is available at any of the participating organizations’ Web sites: www.jcaho.org, www.ama-assn.org/amap, or www.ncqa.org.
MGMA upgrades Web site
MGMA Online — http://www.mgma.com — has a new look. The remodeled site includes areas to search for a job or fill a physician position. It also has an on-line member directory and discussion groups to speed networking. A new practice solutions section provides weekly tips for administrators, as well as an archive of past articles. A catalog of Medical Group Management Association products is available in the Library Resource Center, and education programs are now available on line through an Internet distance learning program. The first course is one on cost accounting. For more information, contact MGMA at (303) 799-1111 or visit the Web site.
Key to success: Better patient care
It may seem like a no-brainer to physician practices, but a new study has shown that if health plans want to be successful in the long term, improving patient care is more important than efficient administration and customer service.
The study, conducted by the Ann Arbor, MI-based MEDSTAT Group, ranked 11 plan performance categories as most important to health plan enrollees. The three most important are choice of providers, physician care, and the appearance of physicians and staff being overworked or rushed. Those three alone accounted for almost 42% of the overall plan ratings by enrollees.
For more information on the study, contact the MEDSTAT Group at (734) 913-3000.
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