Mark Hood is the CEO of Southlake-based Spine Team Texas.
Mr. Hood will serve on the panel “How to Make ASCs Less Vulnerable to Market Forces” at Becker’s ASC Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference on Oct. 27-29 in Chicago.
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Question: What is the smartest thing you've done in the last year to set your organization up for success?
Mark Hood: I would expand that to the last several years. A number of years ago, because of the constant change in healthcare and the unpredictability of the market, we felt like we needed a strong relationship with one of the major health systems in the area. We have, and our four ambulatory centers are actually joint venture with health systems. It’s really worked out well and has provided stability in our rates with our managed care organizations. It’s helped make sure we have good contracts in place. A lot of physicians these days want to be independent and I certainly understand and support that, but we’ve worked hard to have as much autonomy as we possibly can. We’ve worked hard to build a relationship with our health system and it’s worked out really well for us.
Q: What are you most excited about right now and what makes you nervous?
MH: I’m most excited about our development and expansion. We’re continuing to expand; we have a five-year plan to increase our physician group by about 30 percent and hopefully establish a couple of new sites. Hopefully that’s going to involve another ASC. Part of the reason we’re expanding our physician group is because we want to help support and drive more volume to our ASCs, and we’re also in the process of moving more to spine surgery in those ASCs. It’s a pretty big project but we’re excited about it.
The thing I’m most nervous about is the usual concerns. Continuing to be hammered on reimbursement rates and an increasing regulatory environment; it’s just a constant challenge.
Q: How are you thinking about growth over the next 12 months?
MH: As part of our five-year plan, we’re going to add two to three new physicians, which should really help support our ASCs. We’re constantly trying to determine if we can do additional surgical cases at our ASCs that we haven’t done before.
Q: What will healthcare executives and leaders need to be effective leaders for the next five years?
MH: I think one of the biggest things is they need to be really sensitive to their greatest asset, which is their staff. And I think leaders need to be listening to their staff and their employees, they need to be talking to them. They need to be understanding what their concerns are and how they can support them. I know that in the circles I’m traveling in, a lot of physician groups and ASCs are really struggling with staffing and rising salaries, so I think it’s very important to stay as close as you can to your employees and make sure that you’re tuned in to what their interests are and how you can help them.
One other thing that’s important for leaders is we’re in an environment of constant change, and we need to do as much as we can to understand that change and embrace it, and determine how we can change our operations to deal with that.
Q: What is your strategy for recruiting and retaining great teams?
MH: Number one, we try to stay as competitive as we can with our salaries and wages. But we use all kinds of tactics, like trying to use our existing staff to help recruit. We do a lot of work around diversity and inclusion to make sure that we’re emphasizing a diverse workforce. And then we meet regularly with our employees to determine what are their concerns and what are their interests, and how we can help them.