1. Positive relationships with area hospitals. When the Rothman Institute expands to a new location, the potential for a good relationship with the local hospitals is among the first things considered. A primary goal of the practice is establishing strong relationships with a hospital partner, which allows practice physicians to integrate with the hospital but remain independent.
“One of the ways we are able to do integrate is through co-management arrangements where we partner with the respective hospitals by getting our physicians to participate in leadership positions,” says Mr. West. “We think that by integrating with the hospitals, we are able to serve the same roles that hospitals are looking for when they hire physicians. We try to meet the hospitals’ strategic needs while giving the physicians an option to remain independent.”
These relationships will become even more important as the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, Mr. West says. “We look to the future and regardless of whether there are patient networks or provider networks, we want to make sure we feel comfortable partnering with key hospitals in our perspective areas,” he says. “We understand the importance of great hospital relationships and integrating more with hospitals in the future, especially post-healthcare reform.”
2. Connections with referring physicians. It’s important for orthopedic surgeons and practices to have a good relationship with primary care physicians because they are often the first medical professional patients see about their pain. Primary care physicians often refer patients to specialists who they have a relationship with because they know those specialists will treat their patients well. “We consistently work through our physician referral network to make sure primary care physicians are happy with our services, and we are always responsive when they call upon us,” says Mr. West.
3. Easily accessible office locations. Every time Rothman decides to expand into a new community, the practice leaders must find a good location that will be easily accessible to the residents of that community. For example, after a while the practice began to outgrow its office in Voorhees, N.J., so they decided to ease the burden on that office by constructing a new location in Marlton, which is a little further north.
“This location really provided accessibility to the residents of South Jersey,” says Mr. West. “Our South Jersey office is our fastest growing area — we experienced a 30-35 percent growth over the past three years. We see positive population growth in the future because we are opening offices in areas we haven’t captured before with our other offices. By expanding, we hope to make our physicians easily accessibly for our patients.”
However, it is always important to gauge the potential for success before making a commitment to build in the community. Rothman collects population demographic information first and then evaluates the potential patient volume. Taking on a hospital partner helps make the expansion less risky and begins to grow your professional network in the area.
4. Strong physician leadership. Rothman Institute is a physician-driven organization, with Todd Albert, MD, as president. Dr. Albert also has several vice chairman who accept leadership responsibilities at the different practice locations and division chiefs for each subspecialty. “We look to our physician leaders to make sure the needs of our surgeons are being met,” says Mr. West. “We are spread out, so it’s kind of difficult sometimes, but since our central leadership is strong we are able to maintain cohesion in the practice.”
5. Strategic recruitment to meet office needs. As the practice grows, more physicians are necessary to fulfill the needs of each community. Depending on the situation, it may be more beneficial to recruit a non-surgical orthopedic specialist to become a practice partner instead of a surgeon. “If the backlog of our physicians is in office visits with our patients, we will look first to hiring more non-surgical physicians, pain management physicians and non-surgical sports medicine physicians for that location,” says Mr. West. “However, if we are backed up on the surgical side, we try to bring in more surgeons.”
6. Focus on quality metrics and patient satisfaction. As more emphasis is being placed on the quality of care, Rothman has begun focusing more on quality initiatives and outcome data to establish a more standardized protocol for its orthopedic services. “We’re developing a system that’s truly a functional outcomes database for retrieving data on all patients we have and once we have enough data in it, we can do correlation analysis on what works and what doesn’t,” says Mr. West. “We also have an automated patient satisfaction survey for real-time feedback. Patients receive an automatic survey two days after the visit and the automation populates the data in real time.”
Mr. West says the practice is spending a significant amount of capital on patient education projects and satisfaction modules to ensure a favorable experience. “We’re really planning for the future because most outcomes requirements you are seeing now, even value-based purchasing, depend on having positive outcome reports and high patient satisfaction,” he says. “But at the end of the day, the real outcomes will be functional — dealing with pain, range of motion and return to work times because we feel those are how you determine the real success of treatment.”
Learn more about Rothman Institute.
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