HCA: A Driving Force within the South Florida Healthcare Market
Chapter 2: Review of Key Research Literature
Section I: Research Methods
I will use several research methods which include newspaper articles, online references, websites, and books to help research the reduction of medical staff, improving technology, and aggressive billing practices.
I will analyze financial charts, company websites, and news articles to gain perspective on the influence of reducing medical costs, research trends such as ICD-10, coding, and billing and view the impact that coding will have on billing practices, and I will research technology and trends that are developing and currently being implemented into the healthcare system.
Section II: Literature Review
Research on ways to reduce cost of medical staff
In today’s economy companies are looking for ways to get the most from their employees and at the same time remain cost effective while meeting and often exceeding the needs of the patients. Companies such as HCA and Tenet have found several ways to maintain employee levels consistent with patient volume while other hospitals in the area have had to resort to layoffs. One of those creative ways in which HCA and Tenet has reduced medical costs is by minimizing overtime. Strategies are in place to reduce the number of overtime hours by providing education to managers on hospital guidelines, pre-approving overtime, posting reminders, encourage part-time and per diem staff to add shifts, limit targeted overtime bonuses, tracking chronic overtime employees (Yanko, 2009).
Another way Hospitals reduces cost of medical staff is by hiring per diem employees. Per Diem employees are not considered full-time emp...
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...rs, physician practices, and imaging centers allows hospital groups to consolidate their resources, bill certain services under the hospital payer tax identification number which coders can bill higher rates and office managers can negotiate better contracts with insurance groups. Consolidating services makes business sense by keeping staff cross trained everyone from managers to ultrasound techs can stay within hospital groups or transfer to other facilities located throughout the United States saving the company money on new patient recruitment, training, and employee retention.
Section III: Thesis
With so many structural and financial changes expected in the healthcare market can HCA anticipate a future while adapting and expanding its services and continuing to prosper while it meets the healthcare needs of the community?
In addition to this business plan, we must also address the financial issues plaguing this organization. To illustrate some of these issues lets look at some of the trends here at OCB and within our Industry: For example, OCB’s clinic operations profitability in 1990 was 60%, and now in 1996 our profitability is only 37%, which is down 23 percentage points! We can blame some of this on rising costs of overhead, consumables, etc, however this is happening as the industry as a whole is growing 5% annually, and as our customer base, largely senior citizens, population is growing at almost 1% as year. We should be capitalizing on these industry trends, however, as you all know, not all the trends work in our favor. For example, our lifeblood, the Insurance company’s managed care organizations, and government healthcare reimbursement programs shows a downward trend of allowable payments for our services (DRGs) For example in 1995 the DRG price of ...
In the planning process, the health care organization’s first step should be to identify alternative expense reduction measures that can be implemented. Marshall and Broas (2009) and McConnell (2006) state that measures such as hiring freezes, reduced work hours, reduced salaries or bonuses, early retirement, limited use of temporary workers and discrepancy spending should be explored first before resorting to mass reduction in the workforce. Given the numerous legal cases in which employees have accused companies of lavish spending during layoff processes, a company should consider taking expense reduction measures. This would show that the company had explored another alternative before resorting to a RIF, and it would also help employers dismiss employees claims that the RIF was not necessary or discriminatory ( Marshall & Broas,2009) .Whatever alternative expense reduction measures were taken by the company along with the reasons for doing so should also be documented( Marshall & Broas,2009).Documenting the reason for the RIF, should be the next step.
Thus, reducing administrative work gives an opportunity to clinicians to spend more time with their patients. Through health informatics, some medical procedures can be automated, saving money for the health care budget. Research by Blumenthal and Tavenner (2010) states that, “The widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States is inevitable. EHRs will improve caregivers' decisions and patients' outcomes. Once patients experience the benefits of this technology, they will demand nothing less from their providers.
The cost and administrative burden of providing health care benefits to employees has grown rapidly in the last several years, and organizations have opted to cheaper means of doing this by resorting to CDHPs programs that are little bit cheaper when using deductible health insurance plans. This has led to the hope of healthier generation in the near future as the cost of health services would be manageable (Buntin, Damberg, Haviland & Kapur, 2006).
HCA, after following a conservative financial policy since its establishment, has entered the new decade preparing to make some changes in order to realign their financial strategy and capital structure. Since establishment, HCA has often been used as a measure for the entire proprietary hospital industry. Is it now time for the market to realign their expectations for the industry as a whole? HCA has target goals which need to be met in order to accomplish milestones in the future. The problem arises as to which area holds priority to the company. HCA must decide how the key components of their financial strategy and policy should my approached in order to meet their future goals.
Buchbinder, S.B., & Shanks, N. H. (2007). Introduction to Health Care Management. Sudbury, MA. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Performance Improvement in Health Care. 5, 81-135.
With the federal sequester that added a 2% cut to Medicare reimbursement and the healthcare reform leading to a decrease in hospital admissions for some organizations, the bottom line has become ever more important. Some organizations have used layoffs as one means of cost-cutting but even more are streamlining by outsourcing those services that can be better done by organizations devoted to that one activity (Punke, 2013) The driver of this is the cut to reimbursement.
There is no doubt that healthcare cost are rising out of control. No one likes the
The steady rise of healthcare costs and the ever increasing cost of health insurance premiums are making it harder and harder for employers to pay healthcare premiums for their employees. In the past, it was almost a given that employers picked up the tab for health insurance coverage. The health coverage was usually exceptional with little or no money paid out of pocket by the individual for the insurance premiums. Those appear to be the “good old days”, with fewer and fewer employers shelling out money for health insurance premiums and demanding a larger percentage to be paid by the employee. Other employers are simply unable to financially provide healthcare coverage for their employees and have stopped all together.
How has the healthcare industry changed (pre-1983 to post 1983)? What are the implications for BD? How has BD managed to build up an 80% market share in this market? Which many competitors bigger than BD have tried to enter without success?
This article is a comprehensive look at staffing on hospital units. It used a survey to look at characteristics of how the units were staffed – not just ratio, but the experience and education level of the nurses. It evaluated several different categories of hospital facilities – public versus private, academic medical centers versus HMO-affiliated medical centers, and city versus rural. It is a good source because it shows what some of the staffing levels were before the status quo of the ratio legislation passed in California. It’s main limitation as a source is that it doesn’t supply any information about patient outcomes.
There are new challenges every year in the health care field. Research on the future of the U.S. Healthcare System is of paramount importance to the entire health care industry as well as the citizens of the U.S. To begin with, the research will discuss how challenges for future healthcare services can be enhanced by reducing the costs of medication. By creating a better quality of health care, Information technology advancements, including future funding, lower rising costs, the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The research will also discuss the challenges of market share for different ages of people populating and maintaining a skilled workplace. It will further discuss the tentative solutions to these challenges.
In a service business such as the hospital, the health officers such as consultants, nurses and doctors that offer care to patients constitute direct costs. According to Mclaney, & Atrill (2010, p.2), direct labor cost have direct effect on price of products and profitability of the business. Employees whose activities cannot be directly attached to certain products constitute indirect labor costs and include supervisors and administrators. Direct labor cost may be converted to indirect labor cost (Duska, Duska, & Ragatz, 2011, p.22). For instance, when driver of ferrying materials to the factory is assigned responsibility to drive business managers ceases to be part of direct
Begin your paper with a strong introductory paragraph. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that contribute to the rise in health care costs and available ways to decrease the costs without any hindrances. The estimated annual health care cost of illness is a staggering $3 trillion or about 17% of annual medical spending in the United States (Beilfuss & Thornton, 2016). In one’s point of view, health care cost is the amount of money in which an individual or a third party pay in exchange for health care goods and services. There are numerous factors that contribute to the rise of medical cost notably: 1.
Hospitals, long term care facilities, and mental health all serve as healthcare arenas serving the population in various ways. The hospital provides the most critical type of care, for the seriously ill. Hospitals originally served the poor and ill, but over time with the progression of technology and medical service specialties, they have grown to become healthcare meccas with many outlets. Over the past 30 years the degree of rigor of clinical practice and the scope of scientific knowledge has escalated greatly, and the hospital has become a center of high standards, scientific applications, and advanced technological capability (Williams & Torrens, 2008). The increasing shift of services to an ambulatory care arena facilitated by technological advancement itself has left the hospital with an evermore complex base of patient care, higher acuity, and higher costs (Williams & Torrens, 2008). Markets have changed, pricing pressures have increased, and consumer and payer expectations have evolved for hospitals, changes are constant in the medical arena, and hospitals are no exception.