Healthcare Management Services Organization (MSO)
Managing a medical practice takes a lot of time, commitment and enthusiasm. Human resource issues, payroll, purchasing, and employee benefits alone take significant time and effort to manage properly. Revenue cycle management (RCM) consumes much of a manager's time and effort, and making sure that you are receiving the best pricing for supplies and services on top of all the usual day-to-day activities can simply be too much for a physician entrepreneur.
This is where CDW Healthcare Consulting Group believes that MSOs come in and it can assist you in the proper setup, subject to your state’s regulations. MSOs are entities designed to help you with the administrative, or nonmedical, work involved in running a practice. These organizations may be owned by non-healthcare providers,  investors, hospitals, groups of physicians, be a joint venture between a hospital and physicians, or even be owned by health plans.
1. What They Do
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Operational Issues
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Financial Management
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Human Resources and Personnel Management
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Staff Education and Training
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Coding, Billing and Collection Services
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Providing and Managing Office Space
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Discounts and Provision of EHRs and Medical Equipment
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Regulatory Compliance
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Credentialing and Contract Management
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Savings With Group Purchasing
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Risk Management
2. The Benefits to Practices
The primary advantage to forming and/or joining an MSO is to have access to management services and to ensure best (lowest) pricing on supplies and services. MSOs aggregate volume and obtain economies of scale that allow them to obtain preferred pricing on everything from medical supplies to healthcare insurance.
3. Different MSO Structures
There are two types of MSOs: those that provide business services to practices, allowing them to remain quite independent of the MSO, and those that own (buy) the tangible assets of practices and manage them directly.
In the latter example, the MSO owns the equipment, supplies, and office space and leases it all back to the physicians. That is, the physicians continue to practice in their existing office space and own their medical records, keep their existing insurance plan contracts, staff, and so on, but no longer own the administrative expense and burden of managing those assets. This restricts autonomy somewhat, and while it does not go as far as the physician becoming an employee, it does make it much more difficult for a physician to terminate an agreement with an MSO. However, if you want to practice medicine without the headaches involved in administration, then this may be the model for you.
MSOs are evolving to tackle the growing demands of a value-based marketplace. With many insurers now tying reimbursement to quality and outcomes, tracking performance and being able to meet clinical measures and metrics is becoming as burdensome as any other administrative work within a practice, and so MSOs are stepping in to offer solutions.
4. Be Careful
Prior to signing any MSO agreement, CDW can provide the resources and support that you might need to fully understand the agreement that you are signing. We will work with you to ensure that you understand any limitations associated with each service offering, such as the MSO billing and collecting from insurance companies but not managing patient collections, understanding under what terms you may terminate the agreement, including the amount of notice that needs to be given, how to buy back your assets (if you sold them), how to take your billing operation back in-house, and so forth.