Lean Six Sigma for the Medical Practice: Improving Profitability by Improving Processes translates Lean Six Sigma principles and tools specifically for the real-world medical practice environment. Drawing on his involvement with over 2,000 medical practices, author and Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Frank Cohen empowers practices--and their advisors--to use 24 process improvement tools to boost efficiency so more of the revenues that come in go directly to the bottom line.

What types of improvements can practices make?

• Learn how to use analytics to identify inconsistent behavior by payers--so practices can hold payers' feet to the fire.
• See how process improvement can help practices reduce denials by upwards of 50%.
• Use these techniques to improve both patient satisfaction and staff morale.
• Learn how to eliminate bottlenecks in your practice and use metrics to make smart practice improvement decisions.

Over the past 20 years, Lean and Six Sigma approaches have created profit breakthroughs for other types of businesses. Cohen and Dahl bring this methodology to healthcare providers, whittling down the myriad of traditional Lean Six Sigma tools to only those that matter most to their practices. Add Lean Six Sigma for the Medical Practice to your "must-read-now" bookshelf and take the first steps toward improving everything from patient visit cycle time, A/R, staff and patient satisfaction and morale to compliance.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: What's in it for me? Lean Six Sigma benefits for healthcare providers, administrators, frontline staff, attorneys, consultants and payers.
• Chapter 2: Why process improvement? Understanding why process improvement will become the key driver for efficiency and profitability.
• Chapter 3: Team building: How process improvement (PI) teams differ from other teams since they require step by step project management including an end date--and how to create and use them.
• Chapter 4: Project management: How to streamline, eliminate bottlenecks, and use data and metrics for making PI decisions.
• Chapter 5: TPI (Total Practice Improvement) toolbox: A compilation of the most applicable Lean Six Sigma tools tailored specifically for medical practices.
• Chapter 6: Deployment: Understanding and differentiating between the difference deployment platforms, including PDSA, A3, DMAIC, FOCUS and others.
• Chapter 7: What's next? A look into the possible future of healthcare and why process improvement transcends any possible model.

About the Authors:

Frank Cohen, MPA, "The Guru of Process Improvement" is a senior analyst for MIT Solutions, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm that specializes in process improvement and practice analytics. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and has been involved in operational, financial and utilization analysis and compliance risk assessments for thousands of medical practices. In addition, he provides consulting and analytical services to healthcare associations, legal professionals and legislators. As the lead statistician on the AMA's national Health Insurance Report Card in 2008 and 2009, Cohen has worked diligently to get payers to engage in process improvement techniques to reduce the cost and hassle of filing claims.

Owen Dahl, MBA, FACHE, CHBC is a Nationally-Known Practice Management, Leadership and Efficiency Expert and Author of the best-selling books, Think Business! Medical Practice Quality, Efficiency, Profits and the Medical Practice Disaster Planning Workbook.