SoundPractice

Jeffrey T. Gorke is the author of The Employed Physician: Your Essential Guide to the Business of Medicine. His experience ranges from Medicare administration to running both large and small, single-specialty, privately held medical group practices to medical society management on a national level.  Gorke specializes in turning around employed health systems and revenue cycle process improvement and delivering quantifiable returns on investment (ROI) for practices and health systems.  

As more and more physicians opt for employed positions, either when starting their careers or transitioning from independent practice to “employee” status, or when a practice is sold or merged, this podcast interview sets the stage for giving physicians the history and elements of business know-how to succeed as an employed physician. This episode offers an important briefing on trends in employment for physicians by an accomplished official.

Jeff Gorke  (678) 333-3419

https://www.physicianleaders.org/publications/books/the-employed-physician-your-essential-guide-to-the-business-of-medicine

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

As we consume news and information in different ways than in past generations, it is both an opportunity and a challenge for physicians to make use of social media platforms to inform and connect with each other … and their patients.

Mike Sacopulos interviews Umbereen Nehal, MD, MPH, FAAP, a digital health physician leader.  She is an MIT Sloan Fellow MBA candidate, a former Medicaid medical director, and a former CMO. 

Nehal has been named a “Top Voice” four times by LinkedIn. She is now developing a FemTech venture at MIT, combining her experiences as a patient, caregiver, payer, public servant, certified coach, physician, and advocate.

Crafting an influential presence on social media platforms, Nehal shares:

• Strategies that have had an impact on the way she practices medicine.
• How to be a patient advocate via access to patients’ perspectives and patient stories.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/usnehal

https://www.nehalgroup.com/

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Aimee Greeter, MPH, FACHE, is a principle at SullivanCotter in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the author of Effective Crisis Leadership in Healthcare: Lessons Learned from a Pandemic. A popular speaker across the nation, and an author of articles on topics such as hospital-physician alignment, clinical engagement, practice mergers, professional service agreements, and executive leadership, Greeter is also a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and holds a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

In this timely podcast, host Mike Sacopulos and Aimee Greeter discuss the elements of planning for and managing a crisis for any healthcare organization through the lens of the recent pandemic.

In addition to her work in crisis management, Greeter also specializes in helping organizations assess, develop, and implement pay and career equity initiatives and consults with employers on ways to improve fairness, transparency, and advancement for all people regardless of their gender identity, race, and ethnic background. She also collaborates closely with clients to optimize physician and advanced practice provider alignment and affiliation activities to support quality care outcomes, cost efficiencies, integrated care team delivery, and patient-centered operations.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimeegreeter

https://www.physicianleaders.org/publications/books/effective-crisis-leadership-in-healthcare-lessons-learned-from-a-pandemic

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Susan Fink Childs, FACMPE, is the author of the new book, The Emotionally Intelligent Physician Leader, published by the AAPL.  

Ms. Fink Childs’s mission is to help healthcare practices build compassionate, accessible care while ensuring each staff member is respected and recognized for their individual value, impact, and contribution to the organization.

Host Mike Sacopulos discusses the following with Susan Fink Childs:

• The genesis of the book project.
• Childs’s philosophy on communication in the healthcare practice (both with staff and with patients).
• Hints for physicians and non-clinical staff members on increasing their EQ (emotional quotient) via communication skills and body language.

Childs is a national presenter and international author for organizations including AAPL, AAOE, AAP, MGMA, Ascent, ACC, and the AMA. She also served as the ACMPE education advancement chair with MGMA.

https://evohcc.com/contact/

https://www.physicianleaders.org/publications/books/emotionally-intelligent-physician-leader-childs

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Richard J. Baron, MD, MACP, is president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the ABIM Foundation.  In this timely and important podcast, Baron discusses the history and mission of the ABIM and its role in healthcare in the United States. The ABIM, most recently, has taken on the issue of medical misinformation and how it has contributed to the deterioration of trust in medicine and science.

Baron discusses, in detail, a recent piece in The New England Journal of Medicine where he and his co-author discuss the importance of the medical profession maintaining independence from political interference and the consequences of attempts to politicize medical issues. Baron expands on how this situation is having an impact on physicians, their patients, and medicine.

As a bonus, host Mike Sacopulos and Dr. Baron discuss Baron’s undergraduate degree in English and how those studies helped both his writing and his skills as a physician leader.

Protecting the Legitimacy of Medical Expertise by Richard J. Baron, MD, and Carl H. Coleman, JD

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2214120

https://www.abim.org/

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Bruce Goldfarb is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, USA Today, Baltimore magazine, American Archaeology, American Health, and many other publications. For ten years, Bruce has served as executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland and the public information office for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). Bruce’s newest book, OCME: Life in America’s Top Forensic Medical Center published February 2023.

Host Mike Sacopulos discusses the new OCME book with Goldfarb, a behind-the-scenes portrait of one of the largest and busiest forensic medical centers in the United States. Once celebrated as the gold standard of death investigation, the OCME of Maryland was hammered between an epidemic of violence and opioid deaths and strangling budgetary restraints imposed by indifferent state officials, ultimately plunging the institution into crisis. The author highlights the dedicated professionals who work against increasingly daunting odds.

In the U.S., forensic death investigation is in a precarious state.  The shortage of forensic pathologists, shrinking government support, a decade-long opioid epidemic causing a rising tide of drug related deaths, delays in autopsies leading to delayed burial and survivor benefits being paid, delays in criminal investigations and civil litigations, all contribute to a system failing to provide essential public health services in many parts of the country.

brucegoldfarb.com/ocme

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Host Mike Sacopulos interviews senior vice president of marketing and innovation from Jackson + Coker, Ted Weyn. He covers the current landscape for locum tenens, from the perspective of the organization that is interested in using locums and the physicians who are looking at work-life alternatives.

Physician leaders and healthcare administrators are familiar with the staffing problems in medicine. The lack of physicians in certain geographic regions has become a chronic concern for healthcare systems and medical practice. 

This episode of SoundPractice covers:

• Insights and tips for organizations in need of physicians and how locums should be a part of manpower planning.

• Physicians who need a change – of career, setting, or for personal reasons – and how locums offer a path forward.

• How locums impact a hospital’s profitability and ability to deliver patient care.

• What a good relationship looks like between a staffing company and a healthcare organization.

https://jacksoncoker.com/

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.

Susan Dentzer is the president and chief executive officer of America’s Physician Groups (APG), the organization of more than 335 physician practices that provide patient-centered, coordinated, and integrated care for patients while being accountable for cost and quality.  APG members provide care to nearly 90 million patients nationwide.

Dentzer is one of the nation’s most respected health and health policy thought leaders and a frequent speaker and commentator on television and radio, including PBS and NPR, and an author of commentaries and analyses in print publications such as Modern Healthcare, NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)-Catalyst, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. 

As part of Mike Sacopulos’ introduction of Susan Dentzer, “In one of the darker moments of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin said to his fellow patriots, ‘We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.’ ”

While coming together to make this country a better place is not new, it is still needed. Organizations like America’s Physician Group help the medical profession and our nation.  In this insightful conversation, you’ll learn the initiatives the APG is putting in place to benefit all physicians.

https://www.apg.org/team/susan-dentzer/

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

All medical education involves the study of Anatomy.  If you think the field of anatomy has not changed since your days in medical school, think again. Host Mike Sacopulos interviews Valerie DeLeon, PhD, president of the American Association of Anatomy (AAA).

“Evolution of a Discipline, the Changing Faces of Anatomy” a Special Issue, was recently published in The Anatomical Record.

Sacopulos and DeLeon discuss the Special Issue, the AAA Anatomy Scholars Program, and other current initiatives.  The AAA and its members have been busy with a range of advocacy issues and DeLeon and her colleagues have been doing thoughtful work.

https://anato mypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.24898

Anatomy Scholars Program https://www.anatomy.org/AAA/AAA/Awards/Anatomy-Scholars-Program/Anatomy-Scholars-Program.aspx?hkey=b397a528-c0b2-4787-b530-198329ed74c0

https://www.anatomy.org/

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

Climate change is most often thought of in terms of unpleasant weather events.  We occasionally think about specific animal species being impacted by climate change.  Less focused upon are the mental health consequences experienced from an unpredictable environment.

Lise Van Susteren, MD, is a general and forensic psychiatrist in Washington, DC, and an expert on the physical and psychological impacts of climate change. In 2011 she co-authored The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States: And Why the U.S. Mental Health System Is Not Adequately Prepared. Van Susteren is also clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University and has been a consultant to the executive branch of the U.S. government profiling world leaders. 

She joins host Mike Sacopulos to discuss her work.  Meteorologists and politicians can debate the causes of climate change, but physicians and other healthcare professionals are left to care for the people impacted. 

https://www.lisevansusteren.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Inflammation-Discover-Triggers-Equilibrium-ebook/dp/B07SH4425B

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org