Physicians First: Central Utah Clinic - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing - Inside Healthcare

Doctors exist to care for the sick and hurt. A simple enough idea, but in today’s healthcare environment, it seems many doctors are coding, filing, and administrating more than healing. Scott Barlow, CEO of Central Utah Clinic, says it does not have to be that way. Instead, Barlow and his team have developed award-winning technologies and a lean administrative system designed to help doctors practice medicine rather than focus on financials.

While most of the country is experiencing understaffed hospitals and service cuts, Central Utah Clinic has enjoyed an astounding 30% growth for the past six years, and physicians are lined up around the block eager for their practices to join the Provo, Utah-based medical group.

Scott Barlow, CEO

Barlow said what began as an administrative methodology aimed at cutting costs developed into a more comprehensive management style. The group’s physicians are organized into departments based on specialty and geographic location, and each department decides on issues such as hiring, scheduling, and even what services to offer. They run as private practices but are able to access the resources of the entire organization, Barlow said.

Early on, the clinic established a cost accounting model that issues monthly financial statements to individual doctors, giving them control over the finances for their offices. The board holds an oversight role, outlining general policy and providing a clearing house of best practice ideas among the various departments. This frees up the physicians to spend their time helping patients.

“Physicians want autonomy as to how they treat their patients, and they don’t really care about broader administrative issues as long as they are confident those issues are being handled appropriately,” said Barlow.

To meet that need, the clinic has devised a fluid hierarchy that emphasizes high physician involvement. The board of directors is made up of physicians from the group elected by their peers, but it is the smaller, more agile executive committee of physicians that works with the management team on the daily operations of the organization.

This lean model means decisions are made more quickly, and physicians believe the decisions being made are in the best interest of the entire group. “I think the key thing is that we work transparently,” explained Barlow. “All of our procedures and decisions are available to the physician, so if they have a concern, they can easily get the information and communicate what they think should be done about it.”

Tremendous growth
The physicians at Central Utah Clinic are pleased with the organization’s tremendous growth, but that growth necessitated changes in management and investments in technology.

Until 2001, the clinic operated without a CEO, but in September of that year, the organization hired Barlow to establish a stronger management team that could deal with the expansion. Barlow’s management team has worked to establish ground rules, particularly financial ones, to apply across the system. This limits the scope of physician autonomy somewhat but protects their control over what is critical to their practice of medicine.

Extensive technological investments have paid off in making this growing medical group more efficient and effective. In 2003, the clinic went electronic, eliminating every paper chart and installing a comprehensive EHR system physicians can even access from home.

The clinic connects more than 30 offices across Central Utah, and, before 2003, each office had its own chart on patients, even those that used services offered at different offices in the organization. Now, lab results acquired at one location can be instantaneously accessed at any other location, saving the clinic about $176,000 in labor and material costs per year.

Barlow emphasized that the success of this program is largely due to its physician-driven nature. “They saw the need to have these tools and were involved in that initiative from beginning to end, which is why the final implementation was so successful,” said Barlow.

The EHR also saved the organization almost $1.7 million in its first year of use by eliminating almost all incorrect coding. Barlow said he and his team were able to pinpoint that figure so exactly thanks to the organization’s extensive cost accounting system. “This proved to the industry that if you do this right, you can cut costs, make money, and still deliver high quality patient care,” he said.

Central Utah Clinic is now helping smaller neighboring practices acquire and implement this system by reselling the technology for less, so they can enjoy the same success and further help the citizens of Utah enjoy excellent healthcare.

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