In as much as the hospitals offer clinical care and services to the people, they are also in business, primarily to ensure they can pay all the staff working within the facility. For the privately owned facilities, the hospitals work to make profits. In this connection, the hospitals must formulate clinical and business solutions to improve their operations. One of the solutions is expanding the scope of practice and employing non-physician providers. Evidence suggests that increasing the use of non-physician providers, particularly for routine care and preventative screenings, can lower healthcare costs (Stange, n.d). For example, Medicare and private insurers reimburse non-physician providers at 85% of the physician fee schedule when they bill independently and not under the physician’s supervision. Lower reimbursement suggests that hospitals increase cost-effectiveness by employing these non-physician providers.

Using more non-physician providers can also improve outcomes by sharing the workload and allowing doctors to focus on more complex cases. Physicians always suffer burnout because they are expected to work long hours in the facilities; therefore, employing more non-physician providers can reduce the time they will work to provide quality healthcare services. Therefore, physicians can always give their best to improve the overall patient experience when concentrating solely on complex cases.

Another solution is reducing administrative costs. Hospitals’ administrative costs contribute between 15 and 30% of hospitals’ spending, including charges for submitting and processing claims (Herd & Moynihan, 2019). Each insurance company has a different process and platform for claims submission. Adopting standard technology platforms could reduce costs for providers and insurers and increase quality. Implementing an electronic health records system can help improve clinical care by providing better access to patient records.

References

Stange, K. (n.d). “How Does Provider Supply and Regulation Influence Health Care Markets? Evidence from Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants,” Journal of Health Economics. www.healthcarefinancenews.comLinks to an external site.

Herd, P., & Moynihan, D. P. (2019). Administrative burden: Policymaking by other means. Russell Sage Foundation.