Erich Mounce: Partnerships and Performance Data Can Initiate Sustainable Growth in Clinical Practice

Initiating sustainable growth in clinical practices can be difficult, but through economies of scale derived from partnerships and performance data collection, optimal care can be administered efficiently, said Erich Mounce, chief operating officer, OneOncology.

Transcript

What advice do you have for community practices to be able to grow their practice and achieve additional revenue, patient volume, and negotiating power?

So, I think the best advice for a community practice these days, especially in oncology, is really determining how to control their destiny in an environment that’s just so dramatically changing. They are faced with amazing regulatory changes, threats of regulatory changes, price increases, staff issues, drug issues—every day it seems there’s a new drug. So, these practices I think have to really determine how they’re going to survive in that environment. I think the only way for them to do it is to create partnerships that provide economies of scale. Economies of scale is something that is going to help them become more efficient, so that will drive more compensation to the physicians—let the physicians continue to thrive in a community setting. I think that scale will allow them to participate in more research trials. I think that scale will allow them to participate in processes with payers that will allow data driven metrics to really enforce their performance. For a community oncology practice to survive, I think they have to create partnerships whether that’s with a MSO [management services organization] kind of organization, whether that’s with themselves getting together with other oncology practices—I think that’s the only answer in order for them to survive in this community—in the setting we’re in today.

What are some strategies to ensure that this growth is sustainable?

I think the ability to sustain also ties to scale some, but it also pertains to how you’re measuring your success in the marketplace and your performance in the market. So, data—we talk about big data, but this is really performance data. This is data with regard to how you’re performing either in a clinical setting—so progression-free survival, research trials, staging data, and also how you’re performing in a contract. So, make sure you’re performing from a payment perspective, whether you’re performing in getting paid exactly what your contracts are getting paid. All of that data allows you to ensure that you’re sustaining your success in the marketplace. That also transforms to your referrals. Talk to the doctors in the community—make sure you are doing the right things to keep them referring to you. I think finally, to your patients. Make sure you provide an optimal patient journey—make sure that you’re providing an optimal patient experience. I think that for the most part, community oncology is far superior to the cancer journey as a setting of clinical expertise and I think that they’ve got to continually monitor that and drive that in their practices.