Nina Chavez Offers Best Practices for Staying Ahead of Policy, Drug Market Changes

Nina Chavez, MBA, FACMPE, chief operating officer, New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants, Ltd., discusses best practices for community oncologists to stay ahead of changes in policies and the drug market.

Transcript

What are some best practices for staying ahead of the curve when it comes to changes in policies and in the drug market?

Best practices from a physician standpoint and even from an administrative standpoint is that you need to be out there. You need to be reading articles and looking at journals, you need to be going to conferences, and keeping yourself educated on everything that’s going on in the healthcare environment and especially in what’s going on in oncology.

But then the other part of that is not being reactive. You find out all of this information, you talk to so many practices, and then you get to a point where you have so many things to do and you have this reaction of, “Let’s do that, let’s do this,” and really, you have to be strategic in the way you’re looking at it. You have to look long-term goals and say, “Ok, this is what’s happening, this is where we’re going to be in a year, this is where we’re going to be in 2 years, what is our goal and how do we get there in the best way to make sure you’re keeping yourself whole?”

I work for a community oncology practice. My doctors own their center. We have to look at our strategies to make sure they align with the business model, the cost of doing business, along with the research, the practice of medicine, and making sure that we’re looking at that total piece.

I can’t speak if it’s a hospital outpatient or hospitals; I’m assuming they do a lot of the same thing, but they have bigger pockets than we do. So, really being up on everything that’s happening, what’s coming down the pipeline, and creating a strategy that takes you through 3-5 years to make sure you’re being flexible but you’re not overthinking it.