One way that Dr. Meara can reduce the costs of unused capacity

  1. One way that Dr. Meara can reduce the costs of unused capacity is to adjust staffing so that the department achieves 98% capacity utilization by type of personnel position. What would be the financial impact of altering staffing to achieve 98% capacity? What types of changes would he need to make to achieve this and how might he do this? How realistic do you think this would be?
  2. A second way that Dr. Meara could address this situation is to accept a new contract from a local health insurer. For the sake of simplicity, assume that a private health care plan that currently does not use BCH has a need for the three visit types in Questions 1 and 4. The volume from the new contract would be 20% of the amount described in Question 4 and the new health plan would reimburse BCH 75% of charges. So if the new contract is accepted, BCH would maintain all of its existing volume and receive 20% more through the new contract. If the contract is accepted, staffing would need to be altered to achieve 98% capacity utilization by type of personnel. What is the financial impact of accepting this contract and altering staffing accordingly? Is reducing staffing or increasing volume more attractive financially?