Surgeon Cory Fawcett, MD, penned a blog post on short-term thinking that hinders surgery center management and finances. He is the author of The Doctors Guide to Eliminating Debt.
Three takeaways:
1. When Dr. Fawcett sat on a surgery center's management committee, he noticed the owners didn't bring all their cases to the facility, despite the financial benefits of increasing the center's caseload.
2. If surgeons think short-term, they demand short-term incentives, Dr. Fawcett said. "We can't promise they will get a bigger profit share check at the end of the year. We have to give them something this month. Profits need to be paid immediately if we want it to be a good incentive," he said.
3. Short-term financial thinking, according to Dr. Fawcett, means looking at the monthly payment instead of total cost. To get ahead, surgeons must look at long-term outcomes.