3 Tips to Medical Service Line Success

The healthcare sector is currently facing dramatic change. There is a rising demand for delivering quality, increasing revenues under a reimbursed constraints' environment, pressure to reduce cost, demographic shifts, and technology advancement. Today, the competition is getting stiff. Physician and Health Care Organizations (HCOs) are adopting the medical service line model to provide a one-stop station for specific services.

At Med X, our mission is to mitigate physician shortages with partner HCOs by providing efficient and straightforward solutions. Whether you are looking to rebuild or launch a new medical service line, we have the tools to ensure flawless delivery.

Here are the top 3 quality tips for building a medical service line.

1. The Purpose of a Medical Service Line

A service line is designed to improve services and maximize profitable revenues. Today, most medical centers have adopted a service line model to bundle services and episodic procedures. A service line must focus on practical considerations like the choice of services to deliver and the medical organization's reputation. That will enable a physician to get the maximum profitability intended.

When we create the service line, it's key to ensure the platform's future growth by delivering more patients' care. We also increase the number of qualified physicians to improve services and capture available marketshare in the serviceable area. This approach allows HCO's to sustain financial viability while improving the quality and continuity of care.

2. Specializing in Better Value Proposition

A service line's primary objective is to deliver customized care and grow revenue by improving operating margin. To establish a practical service line, HCOs need quality and outcome metrics that should be understood as deliverable measures. 

HCO's need to run evidence-based clinical value propositions (CVP's) that are much better than what competitors' offer. They should include quality of care as a component of the CVP. Metrics such as lower cost should be well defined and understood, for the price is another component of a CVP that can sustain and grow marketshare.

A service line should engage a particular financial model and a profit and loss service to manage its objective in the business market. Remember, the aim is to deliver better services and maximize profitable revenues. These two aspects will forever run hand in hand.

3. Implementing the Service Line Concept

Most medical service lines fall short after their launch. The operational reality devolves into a less productive service line and causes financial stress on the organization. So what is the root of such failures? Implementation of service line concept without majoring into defined service line options. It is easy to identify a service line established on a poor definitional foundation.

Some service lines' symptoms with incompetent definition foundation will have poorly described CVP's, SLA roles, no clarity on accountability, lack of decision-authority, and ambiguity in responsibilities.

Besides, a service line with such presentations will lack a clear understanding of guidelines to achieving its objectives. The energy intended to bridge accountability gaps and improve care turns into frustration and ultimately employee turnover. 

Success is most often a group effort, and valuable partnerships can be the difference between success and failure. Always look for partners that care to understand your unique needs. Learn more about a partnership with Med X.

We hope these tips help in your mission to provide patient care. Questions or comments, drop them below!