23
EW NEWS & OPINION
May 2018
5. The management committee.
This work group consists of the
administrator, managing part-
ner, and all mid-level managers,
meeting bi-weekly and running
through an agenda that principal-
ly covers project updates, group
problem solving, and granular pol-
icy and operations development.
In our consulting experience, this
group meeting often goes missing
in less well-organized practices.
Adding this meeting where it is
absent can turn around a faltering
organization.
6. The board of directors. The
owners and administrator will
meet monthly. They will follow an
agenda with supporting materials
handed out well in advance of
the meeting, and will keep at least
informal minutes to memorialize
what has been agreed upon. For-
mal motions and seconds precede
a discussion and vote, and the
meeting chair (which can be the
managing partner or the admin-
istrator) keeps close control over
time, bringing drifting discussions
to the topic at hand.
7. Other committees. Some practic-
es at this scale will have a finance
committee, perhaps one owner,
the outside CPA, and adminis-
trator, to help streamline board
logarithmically. If you are part of
a $10 million practice, don't be
surprised if your governance struc-
ture is four times as complex as the
summary here. EW
meetings. Some practices empow-
er a quality assurance committee
to formally drive the continuous
improvement process. At larg-
er practice scales, many more
committees can help break up the
task of governing a more complex
company.
While practice growth may be
linear, enterprise complexity grows
Mr. Pinto is president of
J. Pinto & Associates Inc.,
an ophthalmic practice
management consulting
firm in San Diego. His
latest ASCRS•ASOA book,
Simple: The Inner Game
of Ophthalmic Practice Success, is available at
www.asoa.org. He can be contacted at pintoinc@
aol.com or 619-223-2233.
Ms. Wohl is president of C.
Wohl & Associates Inc., a
practice management con-
sulting firm. She earned
her Masters of Health
Services Administration
degree at George Wash-
ington University and has 30 years of hospital
and physician practice management expertise.
She can be contacted at czwohl@gmail.com or
609-410-2932.
About the authors
