Many forces are driving the trend in hospital acquisition of physician groups, from the need to strengthen physician-hospital alignment to new payment systems that will cut fees and lower reimbursement. But simply acquiring a physician practice doesn’t guarantee financial success for hospitals. Achieving financial objectives requires effective management of the practice-based behaviors, processes, and tools that affect the revenue stream. But hospitals and health systems face several challenges in managing the revenue cycle performance of the physician groups they acquire. To begin with, hospitals and physician practices are separate entities with goals, practices, and standards that are often very different from each other. The challenges that result from such differences—such as differences in culture, policies, tools, and processes—can be alternately clear cut and hard to grasp. Without a solid understanding of what makes each entity “tick,” achieving the financial targets a hospital sets for a physician practice can be an exercise in futility. Improving the bottom line of hospital-acquired physician practices requires an understanding of these challenges and a plan to overcome them. Following are five strategies for enhancing revenue cycle performance of physician practices.
