The Well-Managed Ambulatory Practice

Elizabeth Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC is the founder and principal of Atlanta-based Woodcock & Associates. She has focused on ambulatory practice management for more than 25 years. She has led educational sessions for a multitude of national professional associations and specialty societies and consulted for clients as diverse as a solo orthopaedic surgeon in rural Georgia to the Mayo Clinic. She is author or co-author of 17 best-selling practice management books, to include Mastering Patient Flow and The Physician Billing Process: Avoiding Potholes in the Road to Getting Paid.In addition to her consulting work, she serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Policy & Management at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University. In 2011, she founded the Patient Access Collaborative, an invitation-only coalition of 90 academic health systems and children's hospitals dedicated to patient access improvements in the ambulatory enterprise. She has served as the Executive Director since the organization's initiation. Elizabeth is a Fellow in the American College of Medical Practice Executives and a Certified Professional Coder. In addition to a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University, she completed a Master of Business Administration in healthcare management from The Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University. Mark J. Bittle, DrPH, MBA, FACHE is a Senior Scientist in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An experienced health care executive, Dr. Bittle is board certified in health care management as a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE). His 35 years of healthcare executive experience spans all facets of ambulatory services, including development and operations of community-based primary and multispecialty physician practices, hospital-based ambulatory and faculty practices organizations, quality, and patient safety improvement activities. Dr. Bittle is Program Director for the Master of Health Administration and the innovative online Master of Applied Science in Population Health Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He teaches courses in Leadership and Management, Collective Impact and Collaboration, Health Care Financing, Medical Practice Management, and Healthcare Strategy. His areas of research interest include physician leadership development, organizational and management factors that influence physician alignment, managing change in complex organizations, and developing effective strategies for collaboration within population health management. Dr. Bittle earned his Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) with a concentration in Leadership and Management, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, his MBA from the University of Baltimore and his Bachelor of Science in Emergency Health Services from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Contributors
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. The Ambulatory Landscape
Chapter 2. Strategy and Leadership
Chapter 3. Organizational Structure
Chapter 4. Quality, Safety, and Patient Experience
Chapter 5. Operations with Case Study: Lemonaid Health: Pursuing a New Strategy in Mental Health
Chapter 6. Financial Management
Chapter 7. Human Resources with Case Study: Disruptive Behavior