by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | May 05, 2017
From the May 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
HCB News: What challenges does Saint Anthony face?
GM: The state hasn’t had a budget in two years, so payments are slow, and claim denials have increased. However, we implemented strategies for growing volume, improving efficiencies, lowering expenses and finding cost savings.
HCB News: How has your facility done with transitioning from fee-for-service to outcome-based models of reimbursement?
GM: The real challenge was that we relied on private physicians. So we didn’t have those salaries to pay. They got the professional fee. We got the facility fee. The model shifted and we hired primary care doctors. We took a risk and partnered with Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinics, then partnered on the specialty side with the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System and the University of Chicago Medicine. We did a good job up until January, when people got concerned with deportation. Very sick people don’t want to leave the house. So we’ve been working with local churches and holding town meetings to figure out how to take care of patients worried about being deported.
HCB News: What opportunities are available and how are you building on them?
GM: One thing we’re doing, several years ago, we looked to a new clinic model. We have a 15-chair dialysis center. The population base needs it. The next clinic will be a surgery center. We’re in negotiations with a bank to have an education center about how to do proper banking. It’s a matter of understanding what the community needs and then going about meeting those needs.
HCB News: Do you have any predictions about how your facility will be different in 10 years?
GM: There’s going to be an increased use of technology to provide care and reduce labor costs. At the end of the day, it’s going to be about innovation, whether that innovation comes about through robotics, or as I feel, something beyond. I am also looking forward to the hospital’s new, innovative facility on the new Focal Point Community Campus in development by Chicago Southwest Development Corporation. It will be the first hospital that I know of that’s renting instead of building its own place.
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