The following article is written by Mitch Walters, strategic marketing and product management for Provista.
If you're serious about improving your supply chain to save significant dollars while maintaining or improving quality, then it's time to face the music and begin constructive discussions with your physicians. Here's why: Physician preference items often represent more than 50 percent of an ambulatory surgery center's supply spend.
How often have you heard your colleagues say, "We just haven't been successful in physician preference contracting because we can't get our physicians to cooperate or their share of mind"? There are many factors that impact physicians' selective involvement in supply chain decisions. Most often, it's due to a lack of communication and an inconsistently applied or poorly defined process.
Here are five best practices for creating successful conversations with your physicians about supply chain improvement.
1. Gather data: Before approaching any physician about supply chain issues, analyze your internal data to determine that physician's product/supply utilization and what he/she is costing the organization in terms of that utilization. This "economic credentialing" compares physicians to their peers relative to their supply spend for a particular procedure. This process often spurs conversation between specialists regarding procedural differences.
2. Know your options: Research all products that may be used in a particular procedure and compare them on cost and outcomes. Use the insight and resources of your group purchasing organization to help in this process.
3. Determine the impact on reimbursement, charges and clinical outcomes: The discussion with physicians about supply items is often a balancing act between cost and quality. But it doesn't have to be. Comparing the use of various products on reimbursement, charges and clinical outcomes may provide a clear picture of which items to recommend to physicians.
4. Be willing to switch suppliers: Recognize that suppliers often have longstanding relationships with physicians that strongly influence the decision about product utilization. Providing objective data that demonstrates the cost effectiveness and quality of a product can be critical in convincing physicians to switch products.
5. Understand the impact of the product on the physician and his/her patient: Having crucial conversations with physicians around supply chain improvements will generally surface important facts. Physicians' needs and preferences will likely involve patient outcomes and safety, perceptions of patient interests, their own experience, their comfort level with the product or service, the supplier's support and their medical training — not the cost of the product or service, how difficult it is to procure or primary concerns for supply chain staff. Communication with physicians must be in a language they understand. Speaking with physicians in supply chain or operations jargon simply won't achieve the desired outcomes.
For ASCs to succeed in this new world of healthcare, they must begin to aggressively pursue successful physician alignment activities, especially in the supply chain realm. Finally, commitment from executive leadership is crucial for success.
Learn more about Provista.
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