Medical Center Clinic: Competitive Edge - Health Executive - Red Coat Publishing - Inside Healthcare

To remain relevant in a competitive market, it’s important to have a competitive edge. At least that’s the philosophy at Pensacola, Fla.-based Medical Center Clinic, and it’s a perspective that has provided the organization 70 years of success.

Andy Popple, executive director

Twenty years ago, without the benefit of reports, studies, group discussions, and quality measures touting the advantage, MCC implemented an EMR that’s integrated with its lab and imaging systems, maintains 10 years of live patient data while archiving the rest, and has imaging capabilities to scan in reports from third parties to attach to patient medical records. According to executive director Andy Popple, MCC has historically led the region with clinical and operational firsts.

“We’ve been innovative and have stayed on the cutting edge of technology and will continue to do so into the future,” he said. “It’s the nature of the organization, but it’s also necessary from a competitive perspective.”

The key is MCC’s understanding of the importance behind its IT investments. Internally, IT brings increased efficiency to the patient care experience while enabling physicians to make better clinical decisions. Externally, it enhances the patient experience. “The medical record is at the physicians’ fingertips, said Popple, “but it also provides a complete record to the patient when needed.”

Internally, the company developed MyMCC, an Internet portal similar to MyYahoo. Through the portal, physicians and administrative staff members can access information such as contact information for all of MCC’s 75 physicians and 650 skilled professionals. It allows MCC’s administration to communicate messages organization-wide, such as board-meeting summaries and risk management information, with one push of a button. “From a cost and efficiency perspective, it’s beneficial because I know that everyone got the same information at the same time, and I didn’t have to print out a paper, photocopy it, and have someone distribute it across the corporation,” Popple said.

A better approach
IT is not the only platform on which MCC strives to maintain a competitive edge. Traditionally, said Popple, medicine is specialty driven. Seven years ago, MCC looked at its future and determined that, to be at an advantage in the market to its competitors and a significant benefit to its patients, bringing specialties together around a general type of care was a better approach. Rather than a traditional specialty-based approach, MCC groups specialties in a common setting to maximize the patient experience for a given medical problem.

“We’re really the only organization in this region that can put those specialties together within a physician group,” he said. “Orthopedics, pain management, rheumatology, physical therapy, digital X-ray, and podiatry are next to our ambulatory surgery center and function as the Musculoskeletal Center. Regardless of the type of musculoskeletal problems patients have, they can go to the same location, check-in at the same reception area, have benefit of a common EMR, have diagnostic services immediately available, and receive one bill—vastly improving their experience.”

MCC has also developed the Eye Institute, which addresses the complete spectrum of ophthalmologic medical issues. Sub-specialized ophthalmologists who cover everything from pediatric ophthalmology to retina, glaucoma, and Lasik surgery support the corporation’s general ophthalmology practice. The Eye Institute has an optical shop that cuts its own glass, can provide contact lenses, and is in close proximity to MCC’s ambulatory surgery center. MCC also recently completed a cancer services joint venture with MD Anderson and St. Louis, Mo.-based Ascension Health.

Neuroscience is in the works for 2008, as are cosmetic services and several others. The remainder of MCC’s services are in more of a standalone setting, as they don’t fit into one general category. In addition to the investment in how care is delivered, MCC invested heavily in the physical setting patients encounter at MCC’s main campus to provide a “four-star” look.

“From the slate floors we put in to the waterfalls and salt water aquariums, we want every step of the patient’s experience to be pleasant,” Popple said. “This community has good physicians just like we do. It comes down to giving patients a superior experience.”

Diversified risk
In 2001, MCC took what are traditionally cost centers for physician groups and turned them into revenue centers. MedPro Solutions, one the company’s four spin-off businesses, provides billing services for non-MCC physicians, as well as transaction processing and consulting work. By itself, MedPro Solutions adds more than $1 million a year to MCC’s bottom line.

Another proprietary business, Doctor’s Call Center, focuses on the same demographic as MedPro Solutions but provides paging and telephone services instead. A third business, Millennium Transcription, provides transcription services, and Pinnacle Physicians enables MCC to provide anesthesiologists to hospitals in the region and enter into management contracts for those services.

“If you step back from the specific nature of each business, you can see an overall concept of diversifying your risk, getting it away from just relying on Medicare or BCBS,” said Popple. “The businesses have strengthened our bottom line, but we’ve seen growth in other areas as well.”

In 2001, MCC had shrunk to 47 physicians. Today, that number is up to 75. Physician compensation has also grown in the past eight years. Between 2005 and 2006, the median income of an MCC physician went up 21%, and the average went up 19.8%, and it’s been improving since 2001. Those numbers don’t mean the physicians are being paid too much, Popple said. It simply means the corporation is being run the way a physician group should be run.

“We’re running MCC as a business, but we’re still focused on quality patient care and a superior patient experience. It gives us a platform to attract physicians we want, and they don’t have to worry about their compensation, which means they can focus on the quality of the care they’re providing the patient,” he concluded.

< Previous Story		Next Story >

CURRENT ISSUE

CATEGORIES

HEALTH SOLUTIONS