Improving your anesthesia practice operations is the best way to secure your independence as an anesthesiologist. Before trying to improve operations, you should secure a partner who can provide insight into what other successful groups are doing and provide support every step of the way.

Of course, even with a partner, there are a lot of elements to running an independent anesthesia group practice – so where should you begin optimizing?

Establish Group Governance

Establish strong group governance to avoid internal conflicts. Successful groups create a culture that supports discussion regarding critical decisions. Aim to develop a system that establishes a decision-making body, determines authority for various participants, and enhances group communication.

A great financial partner will be able to act as a third-party resource to help determine what type of group governance structure will work best for your practice and has helpful insight into what successful groups are doing.

Create a Strategic Plan

Develop a strategic plan to determine the future of your practice. Taking the time required to develop this plan will make it clear to everyone in your practice what the current and future goals are. Plus, with established goals, it’s easier to look back to track progress and ensure that everyone shares a common vision about the future of the group. The strategic plan must take into consideration your practice’s current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Once you establish the current baseline, look at all the elements to determine the organization’s long-term goals (we recommend setting 1-year and 5-year goals). Then work together to create an action plan that will allow the team to achieve those goals. Consider which key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to keep an eye on that can quickly and easily indicate if you’re making progress.

Strategic planning is something that many anesthesia groups rarely, or sometimes never, do. Your partner can deliver critical metrics about practice operations that demonstrate how you’re doing now and reports to keep track of progress. They will also be able to provide guidance on the types of goals and KPIs that are most important to indicate practice success.

Grow Your Business

The evolution of the healthcare market has made it essential for anesthesia group practices to provide cost-effective and high-quality care. Many groups can achieve this with just slightly larger practices. Single-specialty mergers are a good solution for small groups who want to remain autonomous but also gain increased job security. Of course, your group members will have to relinquish some control in such mergers, but ultimately a slight increase in scale can be the cornerstone of independence.

Besides specialty mergers, anesthesia practices can also expand to other locations, hospital systems, and facility types. Practices that constrain the group to a single facility are putting all their eggs in one basket and expose themselves to increased risk. Expansion into other systems like ambulatory surgery centers can improve payor mix and allow for less reliance on hospital services.

It can be hard to figure out what type of growth will work best to solidify independence, and the answer will ultimately depend on the conclusions you came to during strategic planning. Your anesthesia partner can deliver practice metrics and comparisons to other similar practices to determine which growth options will help you meet your goals.

Secure Your Anesthesia Independence

It is possible to remain independent in the current anesthesia healthcare environment. The key is to find a partner who can support you by securing your finances and helping you improve anesthesia practice operations. At Fusion Anesthesia, we know exactly what it takes to remain independent and have been supporting independent anesthesia practices for the last 45 years.

If you want to see how we can help you secure your independence, contact us.