Newsletter

June 1, 2021

 

 

Leadership Spotlight:

Share the Value of ACHE With Your Colleagues Today 

When you refer your colleagues to join us in June, they’ll save 43% on their 2021 membership, and you can earn points to redeem for rewards. Attracting new members to ACHE, or encouraging existing members to earn their FACHE® credential, increases the depth and breadth of our community. During our 2021 Membership Drive, we’re counting on our network of over 48,000 healthcare leaders to help grow our ACHE family. You can do this simply by sharing with your colleagues the many benefits of membership and the opportunity to save over 40% on dues when they join in June. To thank you for your recruitment efforts, you can earn points to redeem for ACHE-branded merchandise or discount coupons through our Leader-to-Leader Rewards Program.

You can use this referral card or send a personalized message to share details about membership, or simply forward this email to those who you believe can benefit from all that ACHE has to offer, including the following:

Learn more about how to earn points for merchandise, such as ACHE face masks, through the Leader-to-Leader Rewards Program when you share the value of membership with your colleagues. We are so grateful to you for helping us grow and strengthen the ACHE community.

Ensuring Alignment in Physician Compensation

Physician practices continue to grapple with three interdependent changes triggered by the 2021 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Professional Fee Schedule Final Rules: evaluation and management coding changes, relative value unit increases and conversion factor decreases to maintain budget neutrality across the entire fee schedule. These shifts may create misalignment between physician compensation and the financial health of the physician enterprise. With two-thirds of physician compensation plans tied to productivity, according to a report from the American Medical Association, organizations can prioritize evaluating and restructuring compensation plans to address this misalignment. Factors to use to ensure alignment include:

  • Work relative value units: Work relative value units remain the best measure of physician productivity because they account for work effort and patient acuity. Aligning compensation rate per wRVU with practice revenues will remain a key economic factor.
  • Patient panel size: Aligning compensation with the number of patients treated can better reflect the physician value, particularly in capitated models.
  • Supervision of a care team: Care often can be delivered as effectively and more affordably by advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants. Aligning compensation with a care team approach can allow practices to lower costs.
  • Financial performance: Incorporate practice expense controls into compensation models to engage physicians to improve bottom-line performance. Tying compensation to expense management incentivizes physicians to pursue lower-cost solutions to operational challenges.
  • Shared savings and outcome targets: Revenue streams from alternative payment models incorporating downside risk are becoming more prevalent. Physician compensation incentives should reflect the APM targets to ensure those outcomes are achieved.

For additional details on the changes and strategies for physician practice management, view ACHE’s recent webinar, “Physician Enterprise Strategy and the 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.”

BRG, an ACHE Premier Corporate Partner, provided the content above.

Interested in Earning Your FACHE®? Learn About the Process, Save on the Exam 

Regardless of where you are on your journey to become board certified in healthcare management as an ACHE Fellow, you don’t want to miss these opportunities.

If you are just starting to think about earning the FACHE credential, we encourage you to join us June 10 for a complimentary Fellow advancement information session. During this live-streamed webinar, participants will gain a complete overview of the process of earning the FACHE credential and will be able to ask questions. Although the webinar is free, it does require registration. Learn more and register today.

And, if you have already begun the process of working toward attaining Fellow status, ACHE would like to thank you for your efforts with a Board of Governors Exam fee waiver. If you submit your completed Fellow application by June 30 along with the $250 Fellow application fee and all supporting documents, ACHE will waive the $225 Exam fee for your approved application. Act now to take advantage of this limited-time opportunity, and apply today to become a Fellow.

The Six Dimensions of Leading Organizations Forward 

“True leadership emerges in response to unexpected events and circumstances,” writes Britt R. Berrett, PhD, FACHE, in the May/June issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management. In “Six Dimensions of Leading Organizations Forward: Shaping the Stories of Recovery,” Berrett, the director of the Center for Healthcare Leadership and Management at the University of Texas at Dallas, shares stories of healthcare executives who have led their organizations out of challenging situations and put them on the path toward recovery. 

Other noteworthy articles in this latest issue of ACHE’s official academic journal include an interview with Michael A. Slubowski, FACHE, president and CEO of Trinity Health, and a research article that examines how Duke University researchers, in exploring the association between accountable care organization shared savings success and serious illness, found the potential for a substantial ROI from interventions targeting serious illness.

Read the full May/June issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management, which is now available online to all ACHE members at ache.org/Journals.

Customized Education for Your Organization

With so much change affecting the way we live, work and learn, ACHE is now offering virtual or in-person Choice programs, enabling leaders to continue to invest in their organization at their own pace.

Choice, ACHE’s customized professional education, allows leaders to choose from a variety of program formats and topic areas, including quality and safety, executive leadership, physician executive partnerships, and communication and relationship management. Now, ACHE will bring our experts to you virtually or in-person to provide convenient, cost-effective education designed to meet your organization's learning needs and close competency gaps.

Our program specialist will help you assess your needs, build a program and provide resources to promote your virtual event. Visit ache.org/Choice and get started today.

LGBTQ Pride Month: Going Beyond the Parade 

“Many people associate Pride Month … with parades and rainbows. I love a good parade and have had the opportunity to watch and even walk in a few. While I love the costumes and celebration, those parades mean more to me because they represent a community that has been and continues to be overlooked, ignored and hidden, if not outright attacked.” In a recent ACHE Blog post, Amir Farooqi, FACHE, director/CEO, Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, calls on healthcare executives to be more involved in creating an inclusive healthcare environment for our most vulnerable.

At ACHE, we celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month, which is recognized each year during the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, according to the Library of Congress. The LGBTQ Healthcare Leaders Community is powerful evidence of ACHE’s ongoing efforts to advance diversity and inclusion in healthcare leadership. This group within ACHE offers members at all career levels and stages a collaborative community for professional development and advocacy on distinct issues of LGBTQ healthcare executives. Learn more about how ACHE works to welcome all.