Community health is a complex business with numerous challenges. From operations to finance to clinical care – the health center is a living organism of caring – each area very much dependent on the others. This “interconnectedness” while very much the strength of a health center can also be the cause of any stress or strain it may be experiencing.

A decline in operational performance affects a health center’s ability to be financially sound. When people are not working to the top of their license, they invite inefficiency to infect the health center. When encounters are not closed in a timely fashion or coded correctly the billing process breaks down. When management lacks assertiveness or delegates accountability inappropriately, people management becomes a threat to company culture. And culture, once under siege, is difficult to repair.

None of this, however, is insurmountable. The community health care landscape is dotted with examples of “re-emergence”, of health center near-death experiences turned into success stories.

• Your direct connection to a trusted advisor who has guided turnarounds for several community health centers.
• An opportunity to re-emerge from an operational, financial, or management crisis.
• A line of sight to a better future for your health center through deliberate planning, ideation, and strategic intent.
• Where leadership and practicality meet in a focused effort to benefit the people who walk through your doors.

Typical Engagements

An immediate engagement to assess a critical, time-sensitive situation and to provide a path forward outlining urgent next steps. These engagements usually run from as little as one day to 2 weeks depending upon the circumstances.

Health center leadership will hire me to engage with the leadership team and others such as staff, board, and community partners as necessary to evaluate root causes of distress (usually financial or operational) and to direct the formulation of mitigation or corrective action plans.

This work may involve on-site assessment, staff interviews, material review and other activity to gain a detailed understanding of the challenges faced by the health center.

An extended engagement of several months is often needed to help a health center execute a turn-around. This is typical of a health center that needs an outside perspective with proven, successful experience addressing all aspects of a health center business from revenue cycle through operations and staffing. No stone is left unturned.

• Business strategy and development
• Competitive market analysis and strategy
• Increasing patient volume
• Improving patient retention
• Patient satisfaction strategies
• Aligning clinical capacity with staffing and physical treatment space
• Patient communications
• Employee and organizational development
• Grant proposal development