Bucktail Medical Center announces cost-saving plan with facility physicians
SOUTH RENOVO, PA – Tim Reeves, Administrator/CEO of the Bucktail Medical Center, on Tuesday announced the latest in cost savings for the western Clinton County health care facility. He said BMC is now contracting directly with its in-house physicians; as of Sept. 1, patient bills will no longer carry a fee from an outside agency.
Reeves told therecord-online four BMC doctors are now contracted directly with BMC and “I anticipate there could be two or three more.”
Due to some changes in the agency that had been supplying the physicians, Reeves said, BMC was able to directly contract with the doctors the facility has been using without having to buy out the contracts, so there was no expense.
The savings announcement was part of a formal statement from the medical center and Reeves:
Healthcare, especially recently, is a rapidly changing industry. Here in Renovo, Bucktail Medical Center has successfully endured many challenges. Our commitment to the community, however, remains the central focus of our efforts. BMC recently launched an initiative to reshape the organization to meet the healthcare needs of western Clinton County. Our dedicated physicians are essential to our success. Since 2012 an agency has provided our physicians and, as a result, the agency has also billed for the services the physicians provide. Many times we’ve heard that the charges seem quite high, and that receiving one bill from the hospital and another for the physician can be confusing.
We are pleased to announce that effective September 01, 2022, BMC will be contracting directly with the physicians in our hospital. Instead of paying an agency for the physicians and letting them bill for the physician services, we are contracting directly with each physician, and we are billing for the services they provide. With this change, you will now receive one bill that includes the hospital fee and the physician fee. This cost-effective change allows us to set lower fees for the services we provide in our ER, which will result in more reasonable charges on your bills. Same physicians, same service, lower cost, one bill.
BMC’s Board of Directors and administration are working hard to assess, and provide for, the health needs of our communities and we are taking the steps necessary to be a medical center everyone is proud to support. This important first step allows us to introduce new initiatives and services that promote a healthy community. But this is just the first step. We are actively planning and will have more exciting news soon.
We can. We will. We are…Bucktail
