Here are four leaders' thoughts on reimbursements:
Maxim Sheinman. Director of Business Development at Hospital Corp. of America: Declining reimbursement will lead to additional physician employment by larger health systems. Will also cause declining quality and availability of physician services. More physicians will become employed and will perform less cases in an ASC setting. We will continue to see the consolidation and corporatization of medical practices. More physicians will seek employment in private equity-backed corporations for stable income. Finally, the standard of medicine in this country will continue to decline.
Deborah Herdman, RN. Administrator at Paragon Surgery Center (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands): What makes me nervous is that it seems to be very challenging to stay in compliance with all the required reporting. This additional work often comes with additional operational costs that require balancing against declining reimbursement.
Mahoua Ray, MD. Co-founder and Managing Director of Kansas Pain Management and Kansas Anesthesiology Professionals: The thing I'm really nervous about is the reimbursement cuts from Medicare. I'm also nervous about less young people going into healthcare; I feel like all the way from the front office to prior authorization, from nurses to LPN, that population is getting closer to retirement. I don't have as many younger people come in, so that makes me a little bit nervous about the future.
Rick Ngo, MD. Founder and General Surgeon at Texas Surgical Specialists (Fort Worth): I'm nervous about [value-based care] in that there may be a lot of physicians who are mainly about fee-for-service and volume may exit the profession. Maybe my own personal salary will take a hit, depending on how we derive these formulas. So it's important for physicians to be involved in the discussions on how they get reimbursed under the umbrella of value-based care.