MGMA Chief: 'Stop Whining and Start Leading'

Ahead of MGMA's annual conference in Nashville, the group's CEO says leaders of other industries are crucial to understanding and navigating healthcare transformation.

When 5,500 physician leaders, practice managers, and other healthcare advisors descend on Nashville in a few days for MGMA's annual conference, the message they'll get from President and CEO, Halee Fischer-Wright, MD, MMM, FAAP, is one that may be uncomfortable to hear.

"The keynote speech I'm giving is 'Stop Whining and Start Leading,' " Fischer-Wright says. "It's about how physicians need to stop complaining. Effective cultures require strong leadership."

Not that physicians don't have plenty to complain about. The administrative and regulatory burdens have pushed doctors to their limits. It's not just the transition to ICD-10, which is a speed bump now, but it's the other long-term regulatory changes, such as CMS's various payment programs, meaningful use requirements and the still new health insurance exchanges.

Fischer-Wright wants the conference sessions to be filled with conversations that focus on ways to move forward rather than on what's wrong this year.

"What you're going to see from [MGMA] is how to do things better," she says. "We can make the business of medicine about the patient and not the paperwork."

An Outsider's Perspective
Looking to outside industry leaders for help is more than an idea. This year, for the first time, a closed-group session will hear from leaders representing financial, legal, airline, government, entertainment and other industries.

Chris Lynch is one of the speakers scheduled to be in what Fischer-Wright calls an innovation summit. Lynch is deputy president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilot's Association (IFALPA). That association internationally represents more than 100,000 pilots and flight engineers. He is also a captain and check airman for United Airlines.

"There are a lot of similarities between pilots and physicians when you consider how pilots are viewed in their industry, both then and now," she says. Fischer-Wright co-authored Tribal Leadership, a New York Times bestseller that examined leaders in multiple industries, in 2008. She says draws on that experience to lead MGMA.

"Leaders are willing to give of themselves," she says, noting that all the outside industry heavyweights she invited says yes to speaking at the innovation summit. "Other leaders recognize we're headed for a healthcare crisis with the cost projections and the lack of providers. We don't have an elegant solution on the horizon."

Attendance Projections Up
Last year's MGMA annual conference was in Las Vegas, which is a big draw for conferences, but Nashville's status as a healthcare center is drawing 25% more attendees than 2014.

"Nashville is recognized as the healthcare capitol for a very good reason," says Yvette Doran, FACMPE, COO of Saint Thomas Medical Partners and MGMA board member. "More than 300 healthcare companies operate from Nashville."

Doran has seen how physician roles have changed firsthand. She used to work at Community Health Systems (CHS), one of the largest for-profit hospital operators in the U.S. Now at Saint Thomas Health, a nine-hospital system that is part of Ascension Health, Doran says healthcare transformation hasn't highlighted the differences in types of healthcare systems, it's brought out their similarities.

"I feel like an insider in both worlds," Doran says. "People think the nonprofit and for-profit hospitals are a world apart, they're not. We're all trying to do the same thing: operate a business and care for patients and providers."

Conference Highlights
In addition to the innovation summit that's new this year, Fischer-Wright says MGMA has revamped its education track to focus on topics that are in the mid to executive level range.

One of the conference's big draws is Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, who is a keynote speaker. Gawande's four books have hit a nerve with fellow surgeons, healthcare executives, and the public. In his speech, "From Cowboys to Pit Crews," he is expected to hit on data and culture.

Another group of speakers are part of the conference's game changer series. Rushika Fernandopulle, MD, MPP, co-founder and CEO of Iora Health is included in the group of six. A true disruptor, Fernandopulle's radical approach to patient-centered care is catching on to be a viable model.

"People are anxious," says Fischer-Wright. "Atul Gawande represents it well in the speeches he gives that practicing healthcare is in transition. Hospitals went through it, and now it's the physicians practices' turn. As we get a heavier regulatory burden, there's a receptivity to trying different things and approaches.