October 2002 • Volume 8 • Number 10 |
Want to change the health care system from the inside out? Some physicians are discovering that the best way to communicate with the folks in charge of setting policy is to learn the language they speak.
Roland Goertz, M.D., of Waco, Texas, is 18 years post-residency, has served in academic and clinical-management roles for 15 years, and will soon gain his master of business administration degree at Baylor University.
Why did he take the plunge? Goertz said he wanted the credibility an M.B.A. would bring. He said prior to his master's courses, he wasn't treated as an equal in business meetings. When called upon to speak during contract negotiations, Goertz was expected to cover physician services only -- not business issues -- and along the way, "this grated on me a bit," he said.
"We need physicians with business backgrounds if we're going to work out the health care issues that we face now," said Goertz, who serves on the AAFP's Commission on Legislation and Governmental Affairs.
Associates tell Goertz that his analytical skills have improved -- that now he segments issues into "how does this benefit the patient, and how can we make it work?" In board meetings, said Goertz, "I use business lingo, and I can read a financial statement as well as anyone."
Ditto for Fredric Leary, M.D., of Oak Park, Ill., who earned his M.B.A. in the spring of 2001. As a full-time practicing physician who also does most of the business side of his practice, Leary said now he talks to business colleagues in terms they understand.
Face it, said Leary: Most of today's hospitals are run by business people, not physicians. "If we (physicians) want to take back control of health care, we have to learn to play by their rules in order to level out the playing field," he said.
Leary recalled a conversation years ago when he was on his way to medical school. His father, also an FP, counseled him to squeeze some business courses into his curriculum. "I said, 'yeah, yeah, right, Dad -- I'm going to medical school to take business courses.'" But 20 years later, Leary said, when he was returning to college to collect his M.B.A., he remembers thinking, "Boy, was Dad smart!"
FP Report is published by the
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Copyright © 2002 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.