Report: Reimbursement cuts instill fear in hospital CEOs
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The “100 Top Hospitals CEO Insights” report asked the CEOs of hospitals tapped as the nation’s best to comment on challenges, successes and performance strategies. This year, most CEOs agreed that being resourceful and finding innovative ways to deliver quality care at lower costs will be most challenging, as well as most important.
One way to start is hitting national quality benchmarks and integrating a level of transparency and communication. While larger hospitals agree that “not sugar-coating” results is important and can improve outcomes, CEOs of smaller hospitals said that they are struggling to find the most effective way to share quality outcomes information.
Equally as important as striving to find ways to provide quality care at a lower price will be hiring sound leadership, aligning communication and having a strong board of directors to help lead the way.
Most CEOs agreed that having a strong hospital culture and committed employees can make the process rather seamless. “Making sure physicians are aligned with the hospital’s goals, in terms of quality and outcomes, is paramount, and having key physician champions is critical,” according to the report. Additionally, most CEOs believe that it’s important to appoint physician leaders.
While 100 percent of major teaching hospital CEOs tapped strong senior leadership as a driver of success, only 18 percent of small community hospitals said that this is most important. Meanwhile, more than half of all CEOs depicted quality outcomes to be the major driver of success.
CEOs listed the top five challenges and key issues to be:
- Decreased reimbursement;
- Physician alignment;
- Quality;
- Continued cost reductions; and
- Accountable care organizations (ACOs).
However, while only 20 percent of CEOs of major teaching hospitals named lower reimbursement as a key challenge over the next two to three years, 73 percent and 54 percent of large community and small community hospitals said this would be a key issue.
While large community-based CEOs offered that continued cost reductions would not be a key issue, 27 percent of small community hospital CEOs said it would be problematic.
“Smaller hospitals, in particular, mention facing stiff competition in recruiting physicians and the economic strain this could pose in the future. Trying to meet all needs of a variety of physicians is proving to be a significant challenge to these smaller hospitals,” the report noted.
Lastly, CEOs were given a list of potential issues and asked to rate them by importance. The top nine issues in order of importance were:
- Quality measurement;
- Physician medical staff alignment;
- Cost reductions;
- Information connectivity and health information exchanges (HIEs);
- Patient engagement and communication;
- Changing payment modes (value-based purchasing and bundled payments);
- Disease management and population-based health management;
- ACOs; and
- Wellness programs for patients.