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Dr. Jeff
Levy: "Hi, I'm
Jeff Levy, and we're here in Philadelphia, at the ACOG national meeting.
We're at the IMET booth - IMET stands for Innovations in Medical Education
and Training, and we're an education business. We've had several
educational seminars in our booth during the ACOG meeting, and one seminar
was with Skip Sands, who is sitting to my right. Skip is the head of the
Women's Health Care in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He's a private
practitioner, and he's been working on some fairly innovative programs in
his office setting. He's has recently started an osteoporosis center in
his office, and I'd like Skip to tell us a little bit about that."
Dr. Skip
Sands: "Jeff,
it's an interesting process in that osteoporosis is going to become a
very, very important prospect or problem associated with a menopausal
woman. It's expected that probably 13-18% of all post-menopausal women
presently have osteoporosis. Obviously as the aging population increases,
that number is going to increase dramatically, and we need to be able to
take care of those patients because we're the ones who see those patients.
It's far more convenient for the elderly population to come to one
physician than it is to go to a physician then have to go to another
physician, and then have to go to another institution like a hospital or a
radiology center. They're very uncomfortable with that, and that develops
a lot of problems associated with travel and transportation. So we needed
to go through an evaluation specifically in our own practice to see
whether it was financially feasible to develop an osteoporosis screening
center. We went through the steps of evaluating the entire practice just
on the number of patients that we had, trying to decide the percentage of
patients that would be applicable to being screened, and then
simultaneously looking at what their insurance was to see whether or not
there would be an adequate reimbursement to cover the costs. What we found
out was not only would there be more than adequate coverage but that it
would actually turn out to be a profit center. This was not something that
was not needed, it was just something that should be done, and if done
correctly would obviously add to the profit center of the practice, which
was what we were looking for."
Dr.
Jeff Levy:
"Skip, what types of things do you include in your osteoporosis
center?"
Dr. Skip
Sands:
"Obviously we have a screening facility so we have equipment to do
bone densitometry. We also have significant nutritional counseling and
also exercise programs so that patients can work on the full aspects of
treating their osteoporosis. We're not dealing with just the idea of
developing a profit center, we're looking at the total care of this
post-menopausal population."
Dr.
Jeff Levy: "If
you had one pearl to give private practice physicians about how to start
an osteoporosis center, what would you say?"
Dr. Skip
Sands: "Crash
the numbers - I mean it's very, very important for you to know what your
reimbursements are going to be and simultaneously to know what the volume
in your patient population will be. It's a simple thing to do, we did our
own analysis, and then what we did was we actually kept a record of every
patient we saw for a month that we thought would be applicable. We
realized shortly after the first week that we had more than enough
patients to make this thing profitable, and the last three weeks were just
confirmatory. So I would say to you - do your homework, and it will
work."
Dr.
Jeff Levy: "Do
you have any specific machine - densitometry machine - that you would
suggest?"
Dr. Skip
Sands: "The
argument always exists between whether or not a peripheral machine is
adequate or you need a central piece of equipment. We opted for a central
piece of equipment which was able to do peripheral scans also. I would
tell you that it has to do more so with volume than it did with the issue
of one machine being actually better. We also are involved in a few
pharmaceutical studies, we really did need a central machine, so it was
important for us to do that. But if your practice is small and you don't
have a significant volume, there's less of a cash outlay for the
peripheral machines, and they will get you started. They will also help
the patient population because in a lot of places central machines just
are not available."
Dr.
Jeff Levy:
"Thank you very much, Skip, we appreciate the interview."
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