Mark Lutes, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article about considerations for a multidisciplinary practice.
Lutes stated that the first step in setting up a multidisciplinary practice, is to make certain that all the healthcare professionals involved have a common vision.
"There's a great deal of business planning that needs to be reflected in the organizational documents of the practice," Lutes said. "There needs to be a lot of thought given to what could happen. People retire, people die, people get divorced -- and you want to make sure that your structure can absorb all of that going forward."
Lutes also raised the issue of designing the practice's internal compensation plan. "In the future, we could live in a mixed model where we have fee-for-service incentives, but we also have a managed care capitated or other types of incentives," Lutes said. "Compensation in the future will be even more challenging than it has been in the past."
Despite the challenges, Lutes believes that when done right a multidisciplinary practice could experience significant success. "There are opportunities to do better in managed care contracting, in part because you're a significant economic force and thus have greater bargaining leverage," Lutes said.
"There are many drivers that would suggest that, even just in terms of basic economics and functioning of a practice, there's a greater likelihood of being able to absorb costs efficiently and stay competitive in a larger group setting than there is in a smaller group setting."
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