Effective Practice Management for Community Health Centers - Posting Notice

Effective Practice Management for Community Health Centers - Posting Notice

Effective practice management for community health centers next series of posts will begin on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. Because of the breadth of the series, The Community Health Center Integrity Structure Of Leadership, Structure, and Finance, we will need the additional three days to edit (yes, edit…) the material for precision.

The new series will start on Tuesday…

Next post: The Community Health Center Integrity Structure of Leadership, Structure, and Finance – An Introduction – Reflecting Forward: Effective Practice Management for Community Health Centers

A Profile of Community Health Centers Errors

A Profile of Community Health Centers Errors

Part 1
A. Failing to define effectively, realistically, and concisely the mission and purpose of the CHC.
B. Weak providers as the cornerstone.
C. Not viewing the organization as a relationship among equals with each party bringing something of value to the table.
D. Not having equal, one-man-one-vote, governance.
E. Ineffective quality control and outcomes review procedures
F. Lack of a patient education program

Part 2
A. Not hiring an operationally strong and experienced Executive Director.
C. Failing to implement and administer business systems and procedures.
D. A poor, or absent, marketing plan
E. Weak financial management
F. Limited business vision
G. No legal document
H. No concise, viable mission statement.

Part 3
A. Expecting the CHC to handle work without getting paid.
B. Not being committed to serving the underserved as a serious business relationship.
C. Giving the CHC tasks that are not consistent with its mission.

Part 4
A. Choosing an inappropriate computer system and software.
B. Using more than one computer system in the initial model.
C. An inadequate management information system (one that was state of the art when color television was a novelty).

As Community Health Center Boards and Senior Managers, if these mistakes are occurring, and recurring within your CHC, consider reading and addressing the next series of posts: The Community Health Center Integrity Structure of Leadership, Structure, and Finance.

Next post: The Community Health Center Integrity Structure of Leadership, Structure, and Finance.

The Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 4, 5, and 6.

The Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 4, 5, and 6.

Continuing with this Series, yesterday we wrote about the first three mistakes:
1. Failing to Define the Mission and Purpose of the Community Health Center
(CHC)
2. Giving the Community Health Center Tasks That Are Not Consistent With Its
Mission
3. Running a Community Health Center Using Weak Providers

The potential for the success of a Community Health Center is great; however, the track records of many CHC’s are littered with mistakes, failures, and attempts to repeat the same historic actions while expecting different results. This series is designed to help your Community Health Center avoid repeating prior CHC failures:

a. Failure to serve the medically underserved in its area;
b. Failure to its employees in not having competent senior management;
c. Failure to use its resources effectively.

Mistake # 4. community health centers not hiring an operationally strong Executive Director:
Community Health Center Boards are often eager to hire “heavyweights” to run their operation. However, that heavyweight may not have sufficient top-level management experience, and little understanding of the operating basics that are critical in a CHC. Community Health Center Executive Directors must demonstrate that they can run the CHC more effectively than the physicians or the office managers.

Mistake # 5. Expecting the community health center to handle work without getting paid:
If the CHC Boards and Senior Management require work to be done, they must ensure that their CHC is paid the fair-market-value for that work. If the CHC is asked to perform a task free of charge, or even at a reduced rate, it will lose money. This loss of money will impact its ability to continuing serving the underserved.

Mistake # 6. Choosing an inappropriate computer system and software:
Vendors will tell you that their system is perfect for your needs, and that their system can do anything. Because of the lack of experience or knowledge in selecting a system for a CHC, Senior Management may find itself with a system that cannot track accounts receivables, managed care patients, file claims electronically, handle authorizations, or facilitate accurate and timely patient and operational data.

Some CHCs take shortcuts because of tight budgets. They may continue using their old, outdated, sometimes cheap systems. As a result, there is no appreciable impact on the operation of the community health center and its patients. Patients suffer, when CHCs use computer systems and programs that were new when color television was a novelty.

Next Post: A Profile of Community Health Centers Errors

Addressing the Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 1, 2, and 3

Addressing the Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 1, 2, and 3

The potential for the success of a Community Health Center (CHC) is great; however, the track records of many Community Health Centers are littered with mistakes, failures, and attempts to repeat the same historic actions while expecting different results. This series is designed to help your Community Health Center avoid repeating the consequences of prior CHC failures:

a. Failure to serve the medically underserved in its area;
b. Failure to its employees by not having competent senior management;
c. Failure to use its resources effectively.

Mistake # 1. Failing to define the mission and purpose of the community health center (CHC):
It is important that the CHC’s mission and purpose be defined and shared with all involved parties and departments. This helps keep everyone focused. What business is your CHC really in? Is it medical services? Is it grant writing? Is it providing experience for new medical graduates? Is it serving the medically underserved? Do you, as a Board member, know what business your CHC is really in?

Mistake # 2. Giving The Community Health Center Tasks That Are Not Consistent With Its Mission:
The CHC should not become involved with projects that deviate from its established mission and purpose of serving the medically underserved. Evaluate work requests to insure that they are in keeping with the CHC’s purpose and goals.

Mistake # 3. Running a community health center using weak providers
The CHC’s gain their strengths through patient encounters, centralized systems, and experienced staff. Weak providers cannot financially support a CHC operation. These underfinanced CHCs with weak providers waste their employees’ talents by pushing them to be “jacks-of-all-trades” who do not have sufficient experience to effectively staff a heavily-used CHC operation.

Next post: The Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make –
Mistakes 4, 5, and 6

A SERIES SUMMARY: The Single, Tragic, Yet Avoidable, Mistake Made By Community Health Center Boards:

A SERIES SUMMARY: The Single, Tragic, Yet Avoidable, Mistake Made By Community Health Center Boards:

1. Failing to Hire an Operationally Strong Executive Director.

This single, tragic mistake, and this mistake alone, is not only the Board’s biggest mistake, but also it will lead to:

The Major Errors

a. Failing to define the mission and purpose of the Community Health Center
(CHC).
b. Giving the CHC tasks that are not consistent with its mission.
c. CHCs using weak providers as its cornerstone.
d. Ineffective finances and financials.
e. Over-reliance on consultants.
f. Failure to develop management staff.
g. Expecting the CHC to handle work without getting paid.
h. Choosing an inappropriate computer system and software.
i. Maintaining the status quo.

If these sound familiar, read on.

If they sound painfully familiar, you may want to re-read this series. http://effectivepracticemanagement.blogspot.com/2009/01/report.html

An effective community health center executive director does not need to be a stereotypical leader in the sense that the term is now used. As Peter Drucker outlined in “What Makes and Effective Executive”, leaders are all over the map in terms of personality, attitude, values, strengths, and weaknesses.

The Eight Practices

What makes community health center executive directors effective is that they follow these eight practices:
1. They ask: what needs to be done?
2. They ask: what is right for the CHC?
3. They develop action plans.
4. They take responsibility for their decisions.
5. They take responsibility for communicating.
6. They focus on opportunities rather than problems.
7. They run productive meetings.
8. They think and say “we” rather that “I”.

Does this sound familiar to the Community Health Center’s Board?
Is this what exists within your community health center’s Executive Director?

If so, you are quite fortunate. If not, I hope that this series of posts has helped your community health center to serve its medically underserved patients.

Next post: ADDRESSING THE MAJOR MISTAKES COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS MAKE – Mistakes 1, 2, and 3

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – The Final Practice: Think and Say “We”.

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – The Final Practice: Think and Say “We”.

Yesterday we reviewed the practice of an effective Community Health Center Executive Director in Making Meetings Productive. Now, let’s review the practice of Thinking and Saying “We”.

Don’t Say “I” – Say “We”

The final practice is: Do not think and say “I”. Think and say “we”. Effective Community Health Center Executive Directors know that they have ultimate responsibility, which can be neither shared nor delegated. They are also acutely aware that they have that authority, because, and only because, they have the trust of the organization.

Think of Needs and Opportunities

The truly effective Community Health Center Executive Directors think of the needs and the opportunities of their center before they think of their own needs and opportunities. This sounds simple; it is not. It is the one practice that is rarely observed.

Effectiveness Is a Discipline

Effective Community Health Center Executive Directors differ widely in personality, strengths, weaknesses, values, skills, and beliefs. All they have in common is that they get things done.

Effectiveness is a discipline. And, as a discipline, it can be learned. Once learned, and consistently practiced, by your Executive Director, it will benefit your Community Health Center and its medically underserved patients immeasurably.

Next post: COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – A Series Summary

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – Taking Action - The Fourth Practice – d. Making Meetings Productive

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – Taking Action - The Fourth Practice – d. Making Meetings Productive

Yesterday we reviewed the practice of an effective community health center Executive Director in Focusing on Opportunities. Today, we’ll review the practice of Making Meetings Productive:

Every Community Health Center executive, senior manager, and most junior managers spend more than half of each day in meetings. Even a conversation with one other person is a meeting. If Community Health Centers are to be effective, they must make their meetings consistently productive.

What Kind Of Meeting Is It?

The key to running an effective meeting is to decide in advance what kind of meeting it will be. Different meetings require different forms of preparation and different results:

1. A Meeting to Prepare a Statement.
One member has to prepare a draft in advance. At meeting’s end, a pre-appointed member has to take responsibility for disseminating the final text.

2. A Meeting to Make an Announcement.
This meeting is confined to the announcement and a discussion about it.

3. A Meeting in Which One Member Reports.
Nothing but the report needs to be discussed.

4. A Meeting in Which Several or All Members Report.
Either no discussion at all, or limited to questions for clarification. The reports should be distributed before the meeting. Each report is limited to 10 minutes.

5. A Meeting to Inform the Convening Executive.
That executive should listen, ask questions, then sum up; but not make a presentation.

6. A Meeting Whose Function Is to Allow the Participants to be in the Executive Director’s Presence.
There is no way to make these meetings productive. You must sit still, make the appropriate noises, and hope you don’t fall asleep.

Productive Meetings

Productive meetings require self-discipline. They require thinking through the purpose of the meeting, and sticking to the format. It is mandatory to terminate the meeting as soon as its purpose is accomplished. Effective Executive Directors do not raise another matter for discussion. They make sure that the meetings are work sessions, and not gossip sessions. They sum up and adjourn. They also practice good follow-up.

Effective Community Health Center Executive Directors know that any given meeting is either productive or a total waste of time.

Next post: COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – The Final Practice: Think and Say “We”.