The Ear, Nose and Throat Institute has two surgery centers in Atlanta. The Milton Hall Surgery Center (above) is on Old Milton Parkway in Alpharetta. On the south side of Atlanta, the ENT Institute offers state-of-the-art surgical facilities in East Newnan.
An Alpharetta physician has launched what he hopes will revolutionize consumer-based health care for thousands of patients.
Dr. Jeffrey Gallups, a double board-certified physician specializing in nasal and sinus disorders, opened the Ear, Nose and Throat Institute three years ago after more than a decade of planning. Like the name implies, ENTI provides specialty treatments for disorders of the ear, nose and throat at 17 facilities in Georgia – and does it with the price tag affixed.
“Now is the dawn of medical consumerism, just like consumerism for any other product,” Gallups said. “Medicine has been this giant black hole, where you don’t know what it’s going to cost.”
Medical services vary from place to place, but most hospitals use what are called charge masters, which are detailed charts listing prices for services. These prices often vary depending on whether the patient has private insurance, no insurance or Medicare. And, sometimes, the charges vary within each category.
In addition, some clinics associated with hospitals charge what are called hospital facility fees which are tacked on to bills even though the service never took place at the associated hospital. In some cases, hospital facility fees can run more than the procedure itself.
Gallups said under his business model, doctors control every aspect of a patient’s care.
“We have our own surgery center, our own doctors, our own facilities, our own anesthesiologist, our own pathologist,” he said. “In fact, there’s no other practice like it outside of a hospital pretty much in the Southeast.”
Because of these controls, ENTI is able to keep expenses down and determine exactly what the costs are.
“We cut out multiple people in the process and still make a profit that lets us hire – we have 200 employees – it lets us maintain them as well as provide the public with transparent pricing,” Gallups said.
The facilities are structured to have staff consulting with patients before the procedure, informing them of all the costs and steps.
“To me it’s really simple,” Gallups said. “What does something cost? How can we hire people to provide that, and then make a small margin?”
Gallups said although the system is fairly simple, it took a lot of courage to break out from the traditional model doctors function under. He operated a traditional medical practice until about three years ago. Then he bought out his partners and hired them as employees.
John Ditto, a board-certified otolaryngology head and neck surgeon, is one his newest hires.
Ditto, who practices in Stockbridge, came to Georgia after working for HCA in Richmond, Va., where he was named Richmond’s Top Docs in Otolaryngology six times.
Ditto said he grew frustrated with the hospital business model and welcomed the chance to practice medicine in an open environment. He also said services are much more affordable at ENTI, by far.
“When I take a patient to the surgery center at ENTI for a tonsillectomy, they’re having to pay out much less than what they’d have to pay if they went to the hospital, and that’s across the board,” he said. “It’s much better for me because, even though I don’t handle the financial aspect of it, when they do ask me, I can tell them.”
People seem to be asking. ENTI has already seen a 10 percent growth this year, and Gallups said he expects another 10-20 percent jump next year.
The practice sees close to 100,000 patients a year from across the country and the Caribbean who have shopped the services, he said.
“You’d think it would be more prevalent nowadays, but people still are not really taking advantage of available consumerism in medicine,” Gallups said. “They can’t do it, because their standard of what to do is based on a hospital. Hospitals have no reason to give up the mega-amounts of money that pours into them from the insurance companies and federal government.”
Gallups said that while hospitals serve a vital function, consumers need to delegate certain procedures to less costly providers. Outpatient surgery, he said, should never be performed in a hospital and under the payment rates hospitals charge.
“The American way is for people to go out there and bargain for the best price they can get,” he said. “But the average consumer today does not feel empowered to be able to do that.”
source: http://www.northatlantabusinesspost.com / North Atlanta Business Post / by Patrick Fox / September 10th, 2015
