Karen Smith: We have a joint venture partnership with a hospital, and at the hospital, there was a chronic problem with physicians showing up late for their first cases. Cases are typically scheduled every 30 minutes, so if they arrive late then that makes every other case run late as well. After all our ASC physicians agreed to it, we implemented a fine system at our surgery center to make sure our physicians were starting on time every day.
Most of our physicians start at 8 a.m., and if they’re not there are on time we mark their tardiness in our electronic medical record system and list the reason for their late arrival. The only excuse that gets them off the hook is if they had a patient with an emergency at the hospital and had to rush over there. Otherwise, we look at procedures in tens. For every ten procedures, physicians can only be late once. If they’re late a second time, they’re fined a flat $100 fee. All the money we collect through the late fines goes into our nursing education fund. So it’s a flat $100 fine for every late arrival after their first.
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