Lumin Health Texas Case Study

Individual Learning Project 1

Business 601

Liberty University

12 February 2017

Description

Lumin Health is a small healthcare system located in the surrounding Dallas, Fort Worth (TX) Motorplex area. Lumin Health is made up of several healthcare entities. There are nine family practice facilities called “Lumin Care” facilities, three free standing ER facilities (Lumin ER),, one urgent care facility “Lumin Urgent Care” and one hospital, Star Medical Center. Lumin Health exists to provide a comprehensive, affordable, whole heath care model to fully service its patients and their communities. In addition, Lumin health also offers specialty surgical procedures in orthopedics, spine, pain, and bariatrics. Lumin Health focuses on complete patient care and satisfaction (Lumin Difference, 2017).  

SWOT Analysis (See Exhibit A)

The term SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis is a management tool that allows a firm’s executive team to identify its (the firm’s) specific critical success factors within these categories.  The idea is to pinpoint both internal and external components within the organization that will affect the company's future performance. (Blocher, Stout, Juras, & Cokins, 2016).  Please see  the SWOT for Lumin health in “Appendix A”

Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced scorecard (BSC) is an accounting reporting methodology that is used to strategically align a company’s business activities (or critical success factors) with its vision (Blocher, Stout, Juras, & Cokins, 2013). These critical success factors are both financial and non-financial. Additionally, these critical success factors are divided into four key sections or perspectives if you will.  The Financial Performance section focuses on shareholder satisfaction. Its target areas are specific to the overall financial performance of the firm such as in profitability, market share, etc. Customer satisfaction highlights how well a firm satisfies the expectations and deliverables of its clients. This category emphasis measures areas like service, quality, and cost. The third critical success factor is Internal Process. Internal processes look at the performance and capability of a company’s product or services. Finally, we have Learning and Growth. This category focuses on how well a firm effectively aligns and develops its human capital with its strategic goals bot now and in the future (Blocher, Stout, Juras, & Cokins, 2013).    

As a comprehensive physician practice facility, Lumin Health’s balanced scorecard should outline the critical success factors that are closely aligned with other continent care facilities of health systems. Please see Lumin Health’s balanced scorecard as Appendix B.

Critical Success Factors Discussion

Lumin Health considers itself a transformative healthcare organization (Lumin Difference, 2017). Lumin’s current strategy is to give first rate healthcare service at an affordable price. This process must incorporate fluent fee posting and collection process which allows Lumin Health to service both commercial and self-pay insurance patients. Seamless revenue cycle management and process flows will be paramount for Lumin. If Lumin wants to capitalize on the self-pay patient, then I has to operate within a lower fee range and minimize AR aging.  

Financial

Revenue cycle management and a strong commercial payer mix is critical to Lumin’s success as its size it’s a challenge when compared to the likes of  larger local healthcare systems like Baylor and Texas Health Resources (THR). Although the latter two facilities do not serve in the urgent care or free standing ER markets, their 500 pound gorilla on the block reputation is a force to be reckoned with.  Lumin Health is small and lean. They are more of a boutique style of healthcare system. The only hospital in the Lumin healthcare’s family of facilities, Star Medical Center, only has 7 beds. Baylor Heath, which is only one mile west of Star Medical Center, has well over 1,000 beds (Lumin Difference, 2017)

Customer Satisfaction

Patient care is paramount to the success of any healthcare organization. Patients are often in critical situations of discomfort and pain when visiting a facility Patients need to know they are in the best possible care. Strict attention to their care assures the patient that confidence and comfort are valued above cost and the ability to pay (Holden, 2011) When it comes right down to it, healthcare is a referral business. It does not matter how much marketing you do, it all comes down to the reputation of the physicians, the facility, and how the staff treats the patients. (Holden, 2011).

Internal Process

Lumin’s internal process and how they are managed are also critical success factors. Physicians or facilities cannot receive fees for service from commercial payers if they are not properly credentialed for contracted reimbursements. This can be a long, odious process in itself.  Improper credentialing and contracting processes can have serious effects on cash flow.

 Risk management and compliance are also extremely important in healthcare. These need to be properly monitored as well. There are so many federal and state regulation’s that healthcare facilities must be in full compliance with.  Finally, healthcare facilities must be able to properly monitor wait time.  Increased patient wait time adversely affects staff utilization and adversely impacts revenue (Holden, 2011) Process must be evaluated to reduce overcrowding, eliminate any redundancies,  and have smooth transitions work flows from one area to another without difficulty or errors (Holden, 2011) .  

Learning and Growth

Healthcare is a continuous evolution of chemistry, physiology, science, pharmaceuticals, & technology. Learning and growing for healthcare professionals is much more of requirement vs a best practice to stay ahead of the curve. In addition, in this period of healthcare reform, establishing a podium for innovation puts more emphasis on a healthcare professional’s continuance of education.  The deliberate focus on academic lectures as the primary

configuration which will never decrease obviously.  However, the importance of alternate education techniques such as developing practice based experience, networking for lifelong learning opportunities; improvement on competencies regarding patient awareness needs to be brought to the forefront as well.