In the world of hospital payments, PSA refers to a physician service agreement. These types of contracts are a form of alignment between hospitals and physicians, although the physician is not employed by the hospital. PSAs can be with an individual physician for something as simple as a medical directorship, or it might be with a group to cover an entire service (e.g., radiology services, etc.). The latter is what is often referred to as a hospital-based PSA contract.
PSAs offer the most flexible way for hospitals to contract physician partners and provide services they couldn’t necessarily offer otherwise, but they also come with their challenges.
What are some challenges for managing PSAs?
PSAs are sometimes used as a “catch all” and become fragmented or “one-off” deals between hospitals and physician groups. Furthermore, there are lots of stakeholders involved in PSAs, which can cause these agreements to come off the rails when aligning to larger organizational goals.
There are many components contained within PSAs and they often require complex payment calculations. If your hospital’s payment processes not streamlined, it is difficult to keep track of these calculations in real time. Too often these agreements are never looked at again until renegotiation or renewal. It’s understandable though, since administrators are busy, and the agreements may be tucked away in a file folder or cabinet. However, this reality makes it difficult for hospitals to see the financial big picture of what they’re spending. This bucket of business is also a great location to focus on both quality improvement and cost reduction.
How to streamline PSA payments
In working with hundreds of clients nationwide, we’ve developed a list of best practices to follow for PSA contracts and payments, in terms of setting them up and on-going management.
Setting up PSAs:
Managing PSAs:
PSAs and related payments can be complex and often overlooked after setup. Take a hard look at all these agreements in management operating reviews at a minimum semi-annually, quarterly preferred. It is an important part of the delivery of your service and an important investment.
Automation can save you time, money and reduce your compliance risk. Ludi is the market leader in physician payment automation. We are the only single-source solution for automating all physician payments. That means we can automate your medical directorship as well as your PSAs. We’re trusted by hundreds of hospitals nationwide, including some of the nation’s largest health systems.
