Critical Times

Robert Meade was named CEO of Doctors Hospital in Sarasota in 2005. He has been in hospital administration for more than 25 years. That includes seven years as CEO of Englewood Community Hospital, which, like Doctors, is owned by Nashville-based HCA Inc.

Meade worked in executive roles with Pasco Community Hospital and Brandon Regional Hospital before he joined Doctors. A 155-bed hospital, Doctors has more than 1,000 employees and cares for at least 50,000 patients a year.

Q: What are some goals Doctors Hospital has pursued to address the rapid changes in health care?

A: Over the last year we've added three new services. We added a 16-bed senior behavioral health center. We took one wing on the fourth floor, and it was a $2 million renovation. We felt there was a real need to take care of these patients that was missing in this community. We also acquired the latest technology da Vinci surgical robot. And we now have a percutaneous catheter intervention stent program (which uses stents to treat coronary arteries.) We had approval a year and a half ago from the state, but we didn't want to move ahead until we had a comfort level and had acquired top-level equipment. We spent $2 million on that, and have done about 14 cases.

Q: What are some challenges the hospital industry, and Doctors specifically, will face in 2012?

A: The challenge of reimbursement cuts, especially for Medicare and especially being in Florida. We have an inordinate number of Medicare patients in Sarasota. When Medicare pays about 60% of what commercial insurance pays, and you have a disproportionate number of Medicare patients, it makes it very difficult. On top of that, the economic downturn has hit Sarasota particularly hard and we've had a lot of folks end up in the emergency room of all the local hospitals. Now we are seeing more and more people who can't pay. Specifically to Doctors, we've seen an 80% increase in bad debt/charity in the last three years. Between that and Medicare, that makes things very tough.

Q: How will federal healthcare legislation, and any potential changes to the law, impact hospitals?

A: I think it's going to continue to be changed. There are some really good things in it, and there are some things that obviously people are having some heartburn about. I think a lot of people forget some of the good things. We can't continue to go forward as the only industrial nation with 32 million people not having healthcare coverage, when a lot of other nations have been able to figure out how to do that cheaper. The legislation has done a lot of positive things, like insuring preexisting conditions. The negative is that they are using Medicare cuts to pay for a big piece of it. That's the biggest concern I have.

Q: What does Doctors Hospital do to differentiate itself from other hospitals in the area?

A: We've been recognized by “Modern Healthcare” magazine three years in a row for the best workplace. Two out of the three years we were the top hospital. That's something we are really proud of. Whether it's health care or any other business, if you have good quality people it really does make a difference from a customer service perspective and a quality outcome perspective.