Healthcare from a Physician’s Perspective

Date: July 1, 2016
Location: College Park, MD

Dr. Manoj Mathew, a healthcare consultant and co-founder/medical director at ACE Medical Associates with extensive experience as a hospitalist and a skilled nursing facility specialist (SNFist), visited Optimal Solutions Group to share a presentation on managed care from the clinician’s point of view. A Senior Fellow with the Society of Hospital Medicine, Dr. Mathew was a medical director with DaVita Healthcare Partners from 2001 to 2015 overseeing acute and post-acute services throughout the northern Los Angeles, including over 40 core hospitals and skilled nursing facilities employing hospitalists and SNFists to cover several hundred thousand managed care lives. He currently works with 2 healthcare startups and is a healthcare consultant working with two national firms.

Dr. Manoj talked about the clinician’s point of view in managed care, first explaining what the “Triple Aim” is: a framework that balances better individual care, lower costs, and better health outcomes. He also discussed a newer concept, referred to as the “Quadruple Aim,” that many doctors consider to be a better framework than the Triple Aim because it also includes an improvement to the clinician experience via streamlining the medical process. Technology, Dr. Mathew explained, was great for medicine, but also caused many frustrations for clinicians and hospitals.

One example he gave was the new procedure for writing a prescription. Before, handwritten prescriptions would have been sufficient but now had to be entered into a computer program before a patient could receive their medicine. A tracking system, the computer program allows for fewer human errors but takes a considerable amount of time, resulting in less time to focus on patient care. Providing insights regarding managed care practices and strategies used in Southern California, Dr. Mathew gave the employees at Optimal Solutions Group an informative overview of the healthcare systems and healthcare programs.