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 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.
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.
The healthcare industry, as a whole, has made great strides towards improving access to he...
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.
(W. Lease, personal communication, July 23, 2010), the “unknown” of the recent health care reform legislation is an external influence that is most relevant to our organization, stated by William Lease, senior vice president of clinical support services. Mr. Lease states, that health care reform legislation will impact our organization in many ways; especially after 2014. While more employees will have health insurance coverage and there will be more patients to treat; the need for controlling costs and improving efficiency is i...
"What Works: Healing the Healthcare Staffing Shortage." Modern Healthcare 37.29 (July 2007). ABI/INFORM. ProQuest. Ithaca Coll. Lib., Ithaca, NY. 2 Dec. 2007
For a while, hospitals were cutting staff, using the IOM report in 1996 as evidence-based rese...
Fred J. B. & Fottler, 2011.Fundamentals of Human Resources in Healthcare. Health Administrative Press, Chicago, Illinois. Print.
Overall, the increase within health care costs is effecting our nation significantly. Not only does it affect consumers but also organization. As it continues to increase everyone is finding themselves unable to pay for such changes. Reducing such growth within the health care costs requires a collaborative, inclusive, and dual-party approach. Strategies for reducing the costs include but not limited to: promoting prevention and healthy living, improving patient safety, and promoting transparency on medical costs and quality. If the nation works on such improvements, hopefully we will be able to turn the health care system into something we can all afford once again.
This comparison is important in many health care organizations because as new technology and medical procedures come out, it is important to know if a change from the current tools and practices should be made to the new ones. To be effective in providing good medical care an organization has to know if a new procedure will improve health outcomes or not. If an organization does not pay attention to the costs of adding new technology, then it can create a deficit in the budget and push back regular activities the organization could have normally provided; had it not used up the money set aside for those tasks.
ABSTRACT Technology affects society in every aspect in today’s world. There is not one single industry that has not been affected by technology, but no other industry is more affected than the field of medicine and healthcare. Modern technology has changed the structure and organization of the medical field. With rising health care cost the amount of uninsured people keeps rising higher and higher. With new technology the prices will only continue to rise. There are currently approximately 46 million people without health care coverage and that number continues to climb with rising health care cost. Employers are either no longer able to pay for employee insurance because of the 54 percent cost increase, or they are having to change policies
reimbursement determinations. As a result, the camaraderie among physicians has developed into a more aggressive approach to impede competition (Shi & Singh, 2012). Little information is shared with patients in regards to procedures or disease control. The subjects are forced to rely on the internet for enlightenment on the scope of their illnesses (Shi & Singh, 2012). Furthermore, the U.S. health care system fails to provide adequate knowledge on billing strategies for operations and other medical practices. The cost in a free system is based on supply and demand and is known in advance of hospital admission (Shi & Singh, 2012). The need for new technology is another characteristic that is of interest when considering the health care system. Technology is often v...
Health care is one of the most lucrative businesses in the United States. It is also one of the areas where modern technology has had the most impact. Health care companies make huge investments in technology each year. To justify these investments, it is important to make sure that the monies spent result in highly efficient and effective policies, improve patient safety, and increases the quality and value of health care services.
The system is constantly revolving to keep up with the demands of care. Health care has always been politicized and will be impacted by the presidents in the future. Every president has different views and stands on health care and the delivery of health care. The fear of rising costs could potentially also affect the future of care and what cuts there may be. Due to the efforts of measuring outcomes and comparing factors, health care is becoming more as a market. Providers are forced to find the best way to offer quality care with value. The major factor that has been and will be changing the future of health care is technology. There will be major breakthroughs in medicine and health information technology. Research would lead to better care and better understanding of the risks one may
Individual hospitals belong to a number of different buying groups and often switch from one group to the next.