7 2
O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | M A R C H 2 0 1 4
O R T H O E C O N O M I C S
O
ne place you never want to cut corners is with staffing. When I
took over my first facility, our management company said: You
don't need to have this person to clean instruments or that per-
son to help turn over rooms. That's a good way to cut costs. The reality
turned out to be just the opposite
We actually have a lot of full-time people on staff, and we know they
contribute to the bottom line, not detract from it. They know our core val-
ues. They know the docs and their preferences. They help keep things
running smoothly and efficiently, and I make sure we show our apprecia-
tion. We pay them well and we reward them with things like lunches,
bonuses and a big holiday party. After all, we want quick turnover with
our ORs, not with our staff.
Another theory is to always pay people for full days — that regard-
less of how many cases there are, they're going to work either faster or
slower and end up finishing at the same time. The thought is that if you
pay them automatically for the full day, you'll be able to get more cases
done in less time. Here, too, I've found that wasn't necessarily the
case, that if you committed to paying people for a full day and then
happened to be especially busy on a given day, you'd end up paying
overtime.
Instead, I've found it works better to pay them a little more per hour,
but to make sure they arrive and leave at the appropriate times. So, for
example, we make sure they arrive 30 minutes before the typical case,
not 40. That extra 10 minutes a day can add up to an extra 50 minutes a
week, and with the hourly rates the market commands, that's another
potentially significant cost.
— Greg DeConciliis, PA-C, CASC
WHERE NOT TO SAVE
Don't Cut Corners or Costs With Your Staff
OSE_1403_part2_Layout 1 3/5/14 10:52 AM Page 72
