budgets of competitors, governmental regulations, local hospital expansion, and insurance reimbursement changes.
The rapid growth of rival dermatology and cosmetic surgery practices is a significant threat to The Woodruff Institute, as it attempts to manage organizational changes. While the practice has four locations in Lee and Collier counties, its largest competitor, Riverchase Dermatology, offers a total of 30 locations with 66 providers throughout the state of Florida …show more content…
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), are groups of physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers, who are willing to provide coordinated, high quality care to their Medicare or Medicaid patients (Berwick, 2011). Having already made it their mission to provide the highest quality care to their patients, the demands of ACOs on the practice have created concerns for the organization. The practice has been negatively affected by ACOs in the following ways: increased paperwork for patients, time-consuming reporting of data by employees, burdensome chart review by providers, unnecessary data gathering requirements by Medicare, cost of electronic medical record systems to collect data, and undue stress from fear of auditing (Lambert, R., Personal Interview, June 3, 2017). Undoubtedly, the aim to improve quality of care is essential. However, the burden is tremendous on the practice to gather increased data within the realm of a standard appointment time, while also attempting to fulfill the mission of providing the highest quality care to each patient.
The Woodruff Institute is observing a growing hospital presence in their region. Studies show that in the United States, there is a shortage of dermatologists to meet the demand for services (Loo, Liu, Geller & Gilchrest, 2007). With hospital organizations expanding in Southwest Florida, the threat of these larger healthcare organizations recruiting new dermatologists for inpatient services or opening outpatient dermatology facilities is alarming. For the practice to continue to grow and expand, it must be able to recruit and retain well-trained