Hospital Partnership

Change Management and Echo Consulting – Where the Rubber Hits the Road

January 9th, 2017
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There are few words in the business world open to as much interpretation as integration. In health care, the word is suddenly ubiquitous. It’s part of the language of health care’s brave new world. And it leaves oh so many details shrouded in mystery. The new integrated acute care program at US Acute Care Solutions […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership, Quality Efficiency Utilization

A Better Way to Manage Acute Care

November 3rd, 2016
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A few weeks ago, we received a letter from a patient who had recently been treated at one of our integrated acute care locations at Somerset Hospital. The patient had come to the emergency department and was ultimately admitted to the hospital. The letter detailed how grateful he was that the same physician assistant who […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, General, Hospital Partnership, Hospitalist Medicine

Four Months After Becoming a Founding Partner in USACS: Where Are We?

May 11th, 2016
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On January 1st of this year, MEP Health became a founding partner in US Acute Care Solutions. Four months later, one thing is abundantly clear, if it wasn’t already: if you’re not comfortable with change, you’re probably working in the wrong industry. Some might say you’re living in the wrong century. Our decision to help […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership, Leadership

Clinician Groups: Amid Widespread Healthcare Consolidation, What Are Your Choices?

January 20th, 2016
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It’s been described as “a cyclical arms race,” as well as a Game of Thrones-style struggle for dominance over the healthcare kingdom. Whatever you call it, the widespread consolidation of health insurers on the one side and hospitals and health systems on the other leaves clinician groups with a difficult choice to make. They can […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership, Leadership

Lessons From My Last Hospital

September 16th, 2015
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When you work with a team of great people for several years, you grow together. You learn together. You succeed and fail together. I had the opportunity to be part of such a team in the ED for the past several years. Recently, I moved to a new hospital, which has given me time to […]

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Posted in Hospital Partnership, Life in the ER

Emergency Medicine Physicians At the Center of Achieving the Triple Aim

March 12th, 2015
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It is amazing to me how far emergency medicine has come as a specialty. Until the 1970s, emergency rooms were staffed by low-level resident interns who moonlighted for extra money or physicians who couldn’t find work elsewhere. After finally getting recognized as a specialty, the specialty still spent a few decades finding its way: developing […]

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Posted in Hospital Partnership, Life in the ER

What to Consider When A Huge Publicly Traded Company Buys Your Emergency Group

February 5th, 2015
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Successful hospital leaders are masters at managing change. But there’s a difference between change you can foresee (bundled payments, EHR implementations, declining reimbursements, CINs) and change that’s unexpected. As the healthcare industry gravitates toward consolidation, large publicly owned companies are acquiring smaller physician groups at a rapid pace. If your emergency group experiences a merger, […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership

The Death of the Independent Physician Practice, or the Birth of the Interdependent Physician Practice?

August 1st, 2014
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We hear a lot about the death of the independent physician practice. But perhaps the more important discussion is about the death of practicing medicine independently. That is, the days when individual physician groups could operate their businesses and treat patients independently and without regard to the surrounding network of other physicians, nursing facilities, health […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership

Should Doctors Work for Hospitals? Tough Question.

June 2nd, 2014
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A physician I have known for many years recently told me about his decision to enter the world of concierge medicine. His reasoning was telling, saying that it came down to a very simple decision on staying independent or becoming a hospital employee. He liked being an independent solo practitioner, and that was his primary […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Hospital Partnership

Medicare Rule Requiring 3-Day Inpatient Stay as Condition for Skilled Nursing Care Dates to 1965

March 27th, 2014
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Medicare recipients who are being denied coverage for skilled nursing care because they were under “Observation Status” during a recent hospital stay should blame a nearly 50-year-old Medicare rule – not their doctors or the hospital. The rule in question requires Medicare recipients to have had at least a 3-day inpatient hospital stay in order […]

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Posted in Hospital Partnership, Observation Care