Improving Profits with a Management Company

You are a dedicated GI physician who has just completed construction on a single specialty ambulatory surgery center. You’ve got your equipment, staff, and certifications in place and already have a list of patients eager to have their procedures at your beautiful, brand new facility. After months of working with a development team, you are ready to cut the cord and start running your facility. And then the question comes from the head of the consulting team: “Are you thinking about retaining us further for management services of your facility?” And you’re thinking-No way! Spend more money? Have even more hands involved?

Well, here are a few reasons to re-think what a management company can, and should, be doing for you. Finding a management company with these traits can put even more money back in your hands!

1. Expertise-Obviously the most important reason to use a management company is that they have experience and credibility in the ASC industry. This isn’t their first rodeo and good management companies will know how to handle any issue that may arise, whether its related to keeping on top of licensure and credentialing paperwork or preparing the budget.
2. Negotiation skills-Expertise in this area will directly affect the bottom line. A management company can help you save money on contracted services, or collect more when it comes to managed care. A management company can periodically review your managed care contracts and negotiate for new rates based on their experience in the marketplace. They can also review your service contracts and negotiate for better terms based on market conditions.
3. Vigilance- You already have your Center Director playing two roles: administrator and nurse. Don’t add financial ovesight to her already growing list of responsibilities. A management company with access to billing software can provide direct oversight of the billing and collecting process, tracking how much and when reimbursements are applied, and allowing them to react when problems arise.

Ortmann Healthcare Consultants provides management and consulting services to new and existing ASCs. If you are interested in learning more, you can reach us at 803-252-7979.

Submitted by Jessica Miller, Director of Regulatory Affairs

Ortmann Healthcare Consultants celebrates 8 years in business!

In early September 2001, Fred W. Ortmann III, founded Ortmann Healthcare Consultants. Fred had retired as a colonel from the Air Force in the late eighties, and spent his career with the military in hospital administration. Fred then helped found AMSURG in 1991 and served as the Vice President for Center Development, overseeing the development of over 100 facilities. When he retired from AMSURG, Fred decided to move closer to his home town and started his business in Columbia, South Carolina.

The company has grown in the past eight years from a small consulting firm to a major player in the ambulatory surgery center development business. Ortmann Healthcare Consultants (OHC) started its business by developing two large surgery centers in South Carolina. A year later, OLYMPUS America, Inc., conducted a national search and selected Fred as the consultant to develop a new service line for the company. This line includes a sophisticated pro forma development tool called the EndoPlanner, for which Fred is a co-patent holder. The Olympus project gave OHC a good start in the ambulatory surgery center development business. Today the company has a number of development projects across the country, ranging from Kona, Hawaii, in the west, to Goldsboro, North Carolina, in the east, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the south, and North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in the north. OHC has developed physician-owned ASCs, hospital/physician joint venture ASCs, and is currently working on two hospital outpatient surgery departments that will use physician management to run the departments.

The company is based on three rather simple principles: honesty, integrity, and excellence in all we do. To our knowledge, every ambulatory surgery center we have developed is open and successful. We believe the key to this success is that we know and understand the core concepts that yield successful ambulatory surgery centers.

Since our start in 2001, we have added staff and moved into management and ownership of centers, but continue to stand firmly on our basic principles.
We provide:

• Full, turn key development services for ambulatory surgery centers, regardless of ownership position
• Economic analysis, which we call a Proforma, for those considering development of ambulatory surgery centers
• Consulting studies for existing surgery centers
• Management of ambulatory surgery centers
• Ownership participation interest in ambulatory surgery centers

As a full service development company, we provide in-depth consulting in all aspects of ambulatory surgery development. Our strengths include physician/hospital relationships, ASC negotiation skills, development of financial Proformas, clinical services, managed care contracting, equipment planning and regulatory management.

We have extensive experience in both single and multi-specialty ambulatory surgery center development and have worked on centers featuring all of the medical specialties: orthopedics, ophthalmology, GI endoscopy, urology, ENT, GYN, plastic surgery, podiatry, bariatric surgery, pain management, and general surgery.

We have not had deficiencies on any state, Medicare, or accreditation inspection of the centers we develop. This means these centers open on time, cases begin and budgets are met. This is primarily due to our superb clinical staff that is in almost daily contact with our centers. The quality of our work has been acknowledged in a number of national publications, and our pro-formas have been recognized by many CPAs and financial institutions for their accuracy, honesty and conservative projections. Our greatest strength, however, is our people and their absolute dedication to our clients and our principles.

We also owe many thanks to the clients and business associates who have made the past 8 years such a success. Cheers to the future of Ortmann Healthcare Consultants!

Ortmann Healthcare Consultants will be at Becker’s ASC Review

Ortmann Healthcare Consultants will be at Becker’s ASC Review’s 16th Annual Improving Profitability, and Business and Legal Issues for ASCs Conference. Come and visit us at booth space 28 where we will have information regarding our company and projects, and of course, CANDY! Key members of our consulting team will be there to answer your questions as well, including Chris McMenemy and Jessica Miller. The conference runs October 8-10 at the Westin Hotel and Conference Center in Chicago, Illinois. More information can be found at Becker’s ASC Review.

York County Endoscopy Center Open House

York County Endoscopy Center, a recently completed Ortmann Healthcare Consultants project, is hosting an Open House tomorrow, Wednesday, September 2, from 4-7pm. This will be the official unveiling of the new facility and the event is open to the community! We hope to see you there!