Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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J U N E 2 0 1 6 O R E X C E L L E N C E . C O M 2 3 much clutter. The business office was boxes and boxes of files. Every drawer was filled with piles of paper. Every nook and cranny was stacked to the ceiling with boxes. And a lot of the employees weren't qualified to do the jobs they were doing. • The potential. There was opportunity beyond belief, but I knew I had to get through all the muck to find it. They had a great market and great volume — in 2009, they had about 3,000 cases. My first priority was to keep the schedule going, to maintain the status quo while I figured out how to de-clutter the place and get the supplies I needed. • The process. I don't think I breathed for about 6 months. It was tough get- ting the building up to standards. Every room had a sink, and we had no money, so I would come in every weekend and take the cabinets and the sinks out, and re-patch and repaint the walls. I remember thinking, I could go back to being a hospital administrator and make a lot more money, but I knew I could have a better quality of life here. • The payoff. We started in May, and the following December we finally signed all the papers for the new ownership. At that meeting, the owners said they'd like to give me a Christmas bonus, but would I mind if we gave the physician-partners dividend checks instead. It was a way to show that we were really turning things around. Even though the checks were meager, their faces when I handed them the checks were a revelation. It was the first time they'd gotten them in years. They knew we weren't in the dog days anymore. • The present. We now have 30 employees and we did 4,188 cases last year. We've added spine and sports medicine and brought in more partners. We've started doing total joints, and we're looking to see whether we can expand fur- ther. OSM