Minutes July 24, 2007 Conference Call Center Administrator Forum

Minutes – July 24, 2007 Conference Call – Center Administrator Forum

Attendees:

Pam Raake, Floyd Memorial , New Albany, IN
Jo-Ann Vatcher, Frisbee Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NH
Mona Wilson, St. Mary’s Medical Center, Huntington, WV
Shirley Singh, Swedish Medical Center
Trish Pugsley, Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, New London, CT
Sue Meyers, SUNY @ Upstate New York, Syracuse, NY
Stacey Queen, Doctor’s Community Hospital, Lanham, MD
Sonjia Lee, Providence Hospital, Novi, MI
Judy Goodwin, Joslin Affiliated Programs, Boston, MA
Janice Murphy, Joslin Affiliated Programs, Boston, MA

The topic of the conference call was a discussion about the biggest challenges your hospital faces along with the biggest challenges your Joslin Diabetes Center affiliate faces. Pam from Floyd indicated that their hospital’s CEO resigned that same morning and that her hospital also had a new CFO. Shirley from Swedish also indicated that her hospital had a new CEO. Swedish is undergoing the installation of a new EPIC system and the Joslin affiliate at Swedish is scheduled to be rolled onto this system during the summer. Swedish is also downsizing with over 100 employees (PTs, Outpatient rehab staff and nursing administration) laid off by end of summer. Further, their sleep center closed at the end of October, with another 70 employees laid off.

Jo-Ann from Frisbee shared with the group that the endocrinologist to whom they had extended a job offer and who had accepted emailed them that morning that he had decided not to accept the position. They are now back to trying to recruit an endocrinologist. Frisbee is also opening a new building in late October so this will be a challenge for them.

Mona from St. Mary’s WV shared with the group that Nell Stuart, RD/CDE had resigned to accept another opportunity with the CDC. Joslin Boston offered to post the job requisition to back fill Nell’s position on the Joslin website. Pat is now back from her leave of absence so this will be a challenge for WV until they are able to recruit another RD.

Trish from Lawrence & Memorial indicated that a new endocrinologist was starting with them in September. They are also expanding their affiliate scheduling to a third office so they were gearing up to handle this expansion.

Sue from SUNY said that they, too, had a new CEO and CFO who started a year and a half ago. Joslin at SUNY had just recently relocated to their new space, which is triple the size of the space that they used to have so this had been a welcome change. They have been presented with a huge challenge in that three of the area endocrinologist practices are closing and they are trying to assume the volume that these closings represent. They are booked out for months now and are still trying to recruit endocrinologists for their affiliate practice.

Stacey from Doctors Community discussed their success in reducing their MD no show rate, which had been 30% previously, down to 16-17%. She attributes this result to the increased charge for no show appointments and to the implementation of a confirmatory appointment reminder call to patients. Doctor’s hired a new VP of Business Strategy & Planning and they have an aggressive plan in place to build a new building by fall of next year. This new building will house private inpatient rooms, a cancer center and additional practice space. It will also include a new parking garage for patients. Stacey indicated that their inpatient educator is doing about 23-25 consults per month and that their inpatient incidence of diabetes as any listed diagnosis is 60%. If a patient’s glucose is 200 or higher there is a prompt for diabetes class training to be scheduled. This represents about 80-85 patients per month and Stacey feels that this volume is contributing to the high no show rate for DSMT appointments.

Sonjia shared with the group that one of her biggest constraints was space, with her educators offices housed in a building that was directly across the parking lot from the endocrinologist’s practice. Her office in Novi has good space but needs to be better designed for patient flow. They have a possibility of a new endocrinologist joining their practice by the summer of 2008 so this is an exciting new development.

Judy asked Janice to speak to the group about the CMS program transmittal allowing providers to charge Medicare patients for missed appointments ( . She updated the group and also noted that the link to the program transmittal was included in the most recent newsletter sent out from Joslin Boston to affiliates.

Janice asked the group about Dr. Tolia’s question regarding what level evaluation and management codes Joslin endocrinologists were documenting for billing purposes and Sue indicated that her endocrinologists were documenting and billing for 99205 for new patients and 99214 for follow up patients. Stacey indicated that her physicians were billing 99205 for new patients and 99213 for follow up patients.

Conference call ended at 1:00 p.m.