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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Jason M. Raidbard, MPA, FACMPE, Executive Administrator of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UChicago Medicine and Biological Sciences
00:23:55
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- [00:00]
A
This is Laura Deardle with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Jason Raidbard, Executive Administrator in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UChicago Medicine and Biological Sciences. Jason, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:15]
B
Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me again.
- [00:18]
A
Absolutely. I'm excited to speak with you because you've got such great insight and perspective on so much of what's happening in the healthcare space today. And certainly your purview spans a ton at UChicago. And so I'm excited to dig a little bit deeper into some of the cool things you're doing right now, as well as what you're looking forward to in the future. But before we dive in, I wanted to give you a chance to introduce yourself and tell our audience a little bit more about UChicago.
- [00:43]
B
Sure. As you stated, my name's Jason Raidbart, so I serve as the executive administrator of our Ophthalmology department at the University of Chicago. So the University of Chicago's an academic medical center. It's located on the south side of Chicago in the Hyde park neighborhood. It was the first hospital, dates back to 1927, so right before the Great Depression. It has expanded quite a bit since then. There are outpatient centers in the South Loop, Printers Row, River East, Calumet City, Flossmoor, Tinley Park, Orland park, just to name a few. We now have a hospital in Crown Point, Indiana. We of course, have. It's been around for some time. Comer Children's Hospital next to Mitchell Hospital, Mitchell being the main, main primarily adult hospital in the Hyde park neighborhood. We also have a split agreement with the four Advent hospitals in the northern Northwestern suburbs, Hinsdale, LaGrange, Bolingbrook, Glen Oaks, and we also have Ingalls in the Harvey suburbs. So it has expanded quite a bit since 1927. I think we're unique in that we have a biological science division that's comprised of clinical departments and much of the research that goes on. Then you've also got Pritzker School of Medicine, our medical school, and then of course, you have the health system. So that kind of gives you a high level of what the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Hospital is.
- [02:21]
A
That's really helpful to understand and thank you so much for explaining that to us. I think it's amazing to see how much it's expanded and really, truly serving a very diverse community and population there in Chicago and the surrounding areas. Now, when you think about the last year or so what's your biggest winner success story that you can share with.
- [02:38]
B
Us from this past year? You know, I think more specific to the organization as a whole as well as my department. You know, our department continues to get, you know, high engagement scores with our staff, with our faculty, with our patients. And, you know, that becomes a very big tone center. I think there's been some great changes made over the last couple years bringing in some very talented people into the organization. And I may have mentioned her before on a prior podcast, but my vice dean of administration and finance, Bess Wildman's brought in a lot of really good quality changes, kind of help with process improvement and improving patient care, I think the health system. And I've had a chance to work with him on a couple little small things. Brought in Phil Quick, he's previously from Rush, so he's the VP of Patient Access and he's got a wonderful vision of what patient access will be and a lot of really good ideas. So I think the blending of the existing university and a lot of my talented colleagues, good quality care, bringing in folks like this along with the existing folks has really been a recipe for success and will continue to be a recipe of success in the future.
- [03:59]
A
Absolutely. That's fantastic to hear. Really cool to have an understanding of where you really see some great results with your patients. And engagement scores, too. I mean, I know those aren't easy to come by. So really, congratulations and kudos for what you and your team have built. Now, in thinking about where we're at today, what are some of the top two to three issues or so you're focused on right now and what's top of mind as you're going into, you know, making decisions for the next six months or so.
- [04:27]
B
You know, it's a great question when I think about it, not just as within my own job, with my own self of what I do for a living, but colleagues that I've gotten a chance to speak at, say this past April at the Becker's Annual Annual conference at various regional or digital MGMA conferences, whether it was even this past January at the AUPO Annual Conference in Fort Lauderdale or even I serve on the board of Directors for the Illinois Chapter of mgma. We all kind of focus and are talking about the shift in healthcare policy in Washington and how that's going to affect and whether you listen to some of the policy debriefs from ACHE or mgma, which are somewhat similar, or even if it's from the AMA or aha, you know, a lot of us don't really know once the new budget comes, how this will operationalize out, where will it be affected? So for example, for your audience, we know that one of the changes will be for those folks who are on Medicaid. They will have to enroll twice in a 12 month period in a calendar year. Prior it was just once. So that's a change that we don't know how many people will be affected by or if it will just become a normal cadence of insurance. No matter what your opinion is on the issue is on Medicaid, the fact remains, at least for an organization like mine, it's a very important part of patient care. It does allow for care for those that are underserved to be able to access care and to be able to pay for the care. So it is very important. I think there's big debates as to how it should be managed from an insurance perspective. That being said, we'll see how some of the changes will affect all the health systems across the United States, all the academic medical centers, community based rural hospitals, et cetera. I think the other kind of general topic that I think everyone's dealing with in general is how do you handle patient demand coupled with a lack of labor source, human capital, if you will, when it comes to physicians, advanced practice providers, but even technicians, medical assistants, nurses, otherwise, while dealing with inflationary costs and being more efficient with say your patient access, scheduling, access platforms, and still maintaining high faculty, staff and patient engagement scores, that is, it reminds me of the picture of someone who's got a plate in every hand, on every joint, elbow, knee, how do you do that? That is what healthcare is today. And that's a lot of the conversation that I think folks who are in healthcare, whether they're U of C or anywhere else that I've had conversations with, everyone talks about, you know, how to deal with it. And then how do you pivot and create solutions in a slightly different environment than say last year, five years ago, or even 10 years ago?
- [07:26]
A
That's such an excellent point. You know, it just seems fascinating to understand everything that goes into the, you know, making the healthcare system run and then seeing how, you know, these legislative topics and other changes coming down the pipe are really have the potential to have a big impact on that. But also, you know, like you mentioned, what will become just the regular standard of practice and what people will adapt to as well is just fascinating to hear about and think about. And having that patient care mission front and center, as well as taking care of the care teams, especially within hospital and healthcare organizations is so critical. So it seems like, you know, there's a lot to think about and a lot to really just continue to prepare for as we go forward. And along those lines, when you're looking at opportunities for growth and development, what do you see as being paramount for UChicago? How do you see things continuing to find opportunities and ways to serve the community better?
- [08:27]
B
Well, I think the answer I'm going to give you is probably more of a broad brush that really any health system could look at as far as like a larger strategy. So I think there's growth can be two ways, right? I think I had a mentor of mine that was my chief financial officer when I was part of the Advent Health System before it became a meeting many years ago. Rick Byron used to always say very simply, but I always like the way he put it, you either have an expense problem or a revenue problem. Right. And that doesn't change. So when we're talking about growth, right, growth can happen in a lot of different ways, but they can become expense problems that it's not managed and handled correctly, as Rick often taught me. So, you know, when you're thinking about it, okay, how can you grow, grow within the means that you have. Not just grow for the sake of we're just going to buy a new building, we're going to expand here. How can you be efficient with your resources that you have today? One way is to seek out partnerships and relationships with other similarly sized health systems or maybe not similarly sized. You as a health system may have a need. They the other health system or medical group may have a need. There may be a mutually beneficial and we've seen this, whether we're talking about academic medical centers, safety net institutions, and I think you're going to see that continue. Could you see consolidation in different parts of the United States? Kind of like what you see with the atrium advocate type health system arrangement. Now that's now multi state. Yes, but just broad brush for any existing health center, large medical group, privately owned hospital, whatever the case may be. I think partnerships are a good idea if they're developed right. They're mutually beneficial. They can help with increasing revenues, deferring some expense or reducing expense and helping with patient care. Because sometimes there are areas where health systems, whether we're talking about Illinois, New York, the Dakotas. I remember I was at Becker's conference, I was speaking to an executive from one of the hospitals in the Dakotas. No matter where you are, sometimes you're cannibalizing the market to a point that's diminishing returns. So I think people are more acutely aware that that's a possibility to partner and thrive, that it's not anymore where it's, you're on this side, we're on this side. Yes, that still exists, but I think partnerships are a bit more accepted than they were many, many years ago. I think the most important thing, and we talked about this a little bit yesterday on the podcast that was taped that I was very fortunate to be part of. And the podcast centered around optimization of physician schedules and patient schedules. And I think there was a lot of discussion of how do you leverage AI insofar as physician schedules while ensuring that you're able to keep physician burnout, keep that low. So we don't see that on the increase because for many physicians, it is on increase. For many advanced practice providers, it is on the increase. For many staff members, patient facing or not, it's on the increase. And it was a fascinating podcast that I think will get posted at some point down the road. But talking about leveraging AI and automation in your scheduling process and how that can not only bring financial returns to your health system or your medical group, but can also be a big win for your physicians and your staff and alleviate a lot of the burdens. Because you'd be surprised if you start to dive into how do we schedule a patient, how many hands and people touch it and how much money that that costs. And if you can automate portions of it, you can really lend yourself to improving not just the patient experience and the staff experience, but patient care, because these patients are getting access into slots that otherwise would just go empty.
- [12:26]
A
That makes a lot of sense. You know, it is really helpful to think through all of those leverage points where, you know, there could become big growth. And I love the point you made too, about partnerships. I think we have definitely been more creative partnerships, more openness and willingness to find ways that different organizations can work together on a variety of levels. And so, you know, to understand how you're thinking about that and what could be ahead to productively solve some of these big problems is helpful. And then too, for AI and technology, it seems that that's really a new frontier for money in the healthcare space, and making sure that that's providing the right value and in the right spot, while also seeing where the investments will take you. So I think this is really helpful to look at and think through. And especially on the patient level, is there anything that you're seeing that is just so critical today to improving that Patient experience, as well as figuring out how you can be successful going forward.
- [13:31]
B
You know, one of the things is, and I deal with this as a patient myself, so I'm a consumer of healthcare. Right, you're a consumer of healthcare. The folks listening to this podcast, all the folks that attend and speak at the conferences like the Revenue Cycle Management and IT conference coming up in the fall, September, October at Becker's. You know, the most important thing is when the decisions are made to change a policy, to change a procedure, to bring in automation, to bring in a change to how we schedule, how do we develop decision trees, even if they're ones that either are pushed out by, or if they're done by a call center and they're handled by a nurse, triage, whatever it is to be successful and to continue to be successful, you have to look at it from the patient's perspective all too often. And I've seen this throughout my career, we tend to, at healthcare kind of live in our own space, our administrative or executive spaces, or even our clinical spaces where we look at a process because this is how we did it, and because this is how we did it, we can't change. And of course, certain things you don't want to change, you don't want to go against universal healthcare precautions or joint commission stance standards, right? That's a given. You want to follow those to a T and then some. But beyond that, we assume that that's a given and that's followed. You need to make sure that the pieces in place that drive your health system are really patient centered. You know, do you want to call eight different phone numbers to try and schedule an appointment, or would it be easier for a patient to call one? For those that want to call, should most, if not all, other than a select level of highly specialized specialists who provide some really unique tertiary care, have the availability to schedule online in your medical group or health system? Probably. So there's many places throughout the country that don't do these things today or don't do them well. And you know, if you're not nimble and you don't change with the times, kind of like the dinosaur or the dodo bird, you will become extinct because you're not adapting. And people are far past the point of being patient with, I'll be on hold for 15 minutes for someone to pick up the phone or I'll try this next number. You know that folks don't need to do that anymore and they haven't for a long time. And as a system medical group, Whatever situation, maybe you're a privately owned small physician office, a group of gastroenterologists, doesn't matter. You need to understand that the patient, without the patient, there is no health center, there's no medical center, there's no medical group, whatever it is. And I think it's important and I do this with my own teams and have over the years, you have to constantly remind yourself that you're in the business of serving servant leadership to your staff, but servants to your patients because you want them. You know, that's why we went into healthcare. Ultimately, at least that should have been the driver. You want to help people. You know, people go into healthcare research because they want to find a cure for something. People go into direct patient facing care because they want to use those tools to help cure people, patients and take the pain away from them. And you need to make sure that your administrative and executive decision making aligns with that too. When you decide to change systems, policies, procedures, whatever the case may be. And I think there's some great house, I think there's a lot of things that we do at University of Chicago over the last couple years and continue to do that, enhance that patient care experience. I've experienced, you know, over the years being a consumer of healthcare, great experiences at the University of Chicago. And I've gone elsewhere and gotten some great experiences and not so great experiences, experiences. I've had relatives tell me the same thing too, both in state and out of state. I'm sure, Laura, you've had some good and bad experiences. So that's one thing that I say is very, very important.
- [17:23]
A
Absolutely. That's such a great point. And thank you so much for digging a little bit deeper there. Now, before we wrap up here, I wanted to ask, what do you think it will take to lead a thriving organization over the next five years, given a lot of these policy shifts, the technology evolution and everything else that we're seeing in healthcare today. How do you stay nimble and really ready to approach whatever is thrown at us?
- [17:47]
B
Well, you know, I think one of the things that you kind of have two choices, you can embrace the change and try and understand it, try and work with it, try and get ahead of it. Right. If you can understand the difference between what's the sound and what's the noise. I had a very smart individual tell me that there's a big difference between sound and noise. Noise is a lot of the activity and a lot of the extras that go on. But you want to listen for the sound, like what's actually Happening or going to happen, not all the gossip and clutter. If you can execute on that, as it relates to, in our conversation, some of the changes with health care policy on the other end, despite the challenges, despite how hard it might be, you will be okay as a health system. You will be okay as a medical group. It doesn't mean that it won't come without sacrifice and making adjustments. And that's the thing that I often tell staff I've worked with and colleagues over the years. No matter what, whom is in Washington, from a policy perspective, the change is inevitable. It's going to happen whether you align with it, like it, don't like it. It's part of the given of every day when you work in healthcare. So how are you going to handle it? How are you going to pivot as a leader, as an executive or administrator of a department of a whole health system and I think understanding how to work within that change. You know, I often think about this as an example. Bill Belichick. You know, I never was a Patriots fan. I still am not. I'm a Bears fan, painfully so. I've been a Bears fan my whole life. But I used to admire what Bill Belichick used to always do as a coach because he could always pick up on the rule changes and how he could take those to his advantage. So when they stopped, when they started calling more penalties on receivers who were getting hit in the middle of the field by cornerback, safety, linebackers, what did he do? He flooded his receivers and tight ends to the middle of the field because people were not going to be as hard hitting as they were before. And that's how Gronkowski became a very good guide end because he had a very thoughtful coach and an all pro quarterback, all time hall of Fame quarterback to be able to utilize that rule change to their advantage, while many teams did not. And they have enough Super Bowls in New England to show for it. So in health care, I kind of think of it in those terms. As much as I really don't like the Patriots, I'm a Bears fan. That's the way that my mind works. It's like, okay, how can we make these rule changes work for us, work for our patients and make sure on the back end we come out? You know, leveraging AI is important. There are many places that don't even use AI at all. Right. Understanding your weaknesses, where do you need to make improvements? Like in my own personal life, I often try to look at where areas of myself as a person can I improve upon whether it's public speaking, whether it's writing. I'll be honest with you. People tell me nowadays that I'm a pretty good writer. I was not a very good writer, but I took a weakness and turned it into a positive and a strength. Health systems have to do the same thing. Are you bad at registration? Are you bad at point of service collections? $20 co pays $30 copays figuring out, looking at your data and then prioritizing and then resourcing it, that's going to be key to thriving over the next five years and even beyond.
- [21:08]
A
That's a really great point and definitely well taken. I love the analogy in callback to Bill Belichick's Patriots. As also a Bears fan, it was frustrating but definitely really fascinating to see his success and how he was able to just continue to be successful regardless of the changes and rule changes and anything else that came in him. So that's really a great way to think about things. In nice final words, to inspire the broader audience here as they think about what they are going to need to do to be successful over the next six to 12 months and beyond.
- [21:48]
B
As far as what you know, I think understanding what's in healthcare policy bills, reading them, a lot of folks will read a summary of it in a article. You have to be careful what sources you read from perspective of fact versus fiction. But I think it's important to understand all the elements as best as you can and then overlay that against, okay, how do you currently operate? So for example, if we get to a point where we're at site neutral payments, what are you doing today to prepare for that as a system in general. Right. So you have to take bits and pieces of what's going on in some of these policy changes. These policy changes are not just part of the budget. There's also other changes. You know, we've seen on the academic side a lot of the changes in the funding for research. And you saw in advance of funding cuts, there were cuts that were made along the way, but in advance of anticipated funding cuts, a lot of systems evolved their workforce and what they could or couldn't do in their next year, next 612 months. They did it in January, they did it in February, they did it March, depending on their exposure to mitigate what that may happen or could happen, say in September, October, November, December and next year 2026. And I think if you have systems that can do that six to 12 months out and do that before that period, they're going to thrive and survive. I think if you wait for the train to pass and then try and catch the train and it's already passed, then you're really going to be working behind.
- [23:31]
A
That's an excellent point. Jason. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a fascinating discussion. I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [23:40]
B
Thanks, Laura, for having me. You have a great rest of your week.