While everyone else is waiting for the economy to recover, now's the time for you to take advantage of the situation and turn the sour economy to your favor. Consider these 7 simple suggestions to turn down times into boom times.

Take care of the staff at your physicians' offices. Physicians choose where they perform their surgeries, but that choice is often made by someone in the surgeon's office, not the surgeon himself. Get to know the schedulers who book cases at your center. This includes the staff of the partners in your center.

Buy them lunch. With the economy down, they're probably not eating out much. A nice meal makes an impression. Would you rather have a peanut butter sandwich, a half a can of tuna fish or a nice meal that someone else paid for? Send flowers or candy, especially on birthdays. If you go out of your way now, it will pay dividends later.

Another easy and inexpensive marketing device is the computer mouse pad. You can have them made with just your facility's name and phone number for a couple of dollars each. Then give them to each physician's office manager, practice administrator and surgery scheduler. Now your contact info is always right in front of the key players that feed your OR.

Look at your employee benefits. Retaining qualified personnel is always a major issue for surgical facilities. For seasoned staff members, employee benefits are often more important than a 2% to 3% raise. However, everyone in your facility knows that healthcare costs are going up, so now is the time to review all of the costs involved in providing medical, dental and vision insurance. This may be controversial in your facility, but modifying them is preferable and more palatable than eliminating the benefits, which may cost you employees.

Find out how much your staff is using the services offered. Your carrier should be able to supply this information for you. If your staff is not using the services on a regular basis, going to a high deductible — $2,500 or $5,000, for example — may be financially beneficial to all concerned. The employees pay the deductible, but they also pay less for their coverage per month. The employee and the employer can bank the difference in the premium in a health savings account.

Revisit the 401(k) retirement plan that you offer since the market volatility over the past year has sent most investments downward. Consider what portion of the employee investment your center can match.

Get your vendors to hold their pricing. Vendors are hungry to keep their existing business, so take the opportunity to get your major suppliers to agree to static pricing for the next 2 or 3 years. Most of your managed care agreements run for more than a year, so why not your vendor contracts? Regardless of the state of the economy, you should review your prices every 3 years to make sure that you're getting the best value and service for your buck.

Base your prices on information from 3 sources: the existing vendor, a vendor you select after a bit of research and a third vendor recommended by your staff. With new vendors, check your prices at the 6-month and 12-month mark to make sure they haven't low-balled you and then tried to increase the prices when you weren't watching.

You'll be approached by vendors who want to be your sole source for items, such as screws, that you can purchase from more than 1 vendor. Before you take a leap of faith, ask yourself if the upside of lowering the costs for these items is worth the downside that your service level will suffer from dealing with a single vendor. Plus, when you're locked in, it may suit your current physicians but not those you're trying to recruit. In Tucson, we like the large-tent approach. This doesn't always get you top-tier pricing, but it does get you the top tier in service.

Involve physicians in cost savings. Besides your staff, your physicians are acutely aware of the down economy. You can get them involved in cost-saving and cost-cutting measures that will provide benefits long after the economy turns around.

Make sure your physicians know how much everything costs. Show them the range of the costs to do a particular procedure when done by different surgeons. For example, the supply and implant costs for performing a shoulder surgery can range from $275 to more than $1,100 depending on the number and types of implants used. If you can show your surgeons where each of them ranks on supply and implant costs, peer pressure will help get the costs down. This is especially effective when the physicians are partners in the center. For surgeons who are not shareholders, the partners need to decide if they can afford a physician who does not assist in reducing costs.

Set your own prices. You can really do this, especially with implants. Establish the price you are willing to pay for implants and let only vendors who'll match or better your price supply their products for your physicians' use. Take titanium screws, for example. If 5 or 6 manufacturers in the marketplace provide them at $65 to $250, set your price at $80 for all of them. You're getting a better price and your surgeons are getting the choice they like. At the same time, the manufacturer at $65 may continue to provide your center with the screws at $65 in order to gain market share. If this happens, make sure that you tell your surgeons about the lower price.

Who's doing the laundry? When was the last time you looked for a better deal for your linen and laundry services? These firms are looking for new business right now and they should give you very competitive bids. This might save you $1,000 a month, which translates to 12,000 good reasons a year to shop around. The same goes for your pharmacy medications. This is another possible area for cost savings that adds to the bottom line.

Review payor contracts. Are you better off at 150% of Medicare or 50% of your billed charges? Do you know? Have you done the math? Reviewing payor contracts is a good thing to do anytime, but in this economy it's especially important to ensure that you're getting proper reimbursement. Isn't it funny when insurance companies are quoting double digit increases in health premiums and they cry to us, "We can't afford more than 2% to 3% increases?" It's not really funny, but that's what we all hear from their side.

Build on weakness
Football legend Knute Rockne once said, "Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points." Given the current economic times, your weaknesses may be more evident. You need to evaluate your center, note any weaknesses and work to fortify them. Your efforts will pay off.