- Welcome everyone to the Becker's
Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Mariah Moham, writer
and moderator with Becker's Healthcare,
and I'm absolutely thrilled to have
with me today Jason Rebar, executive administrator
of the Department of Ophthalmology
and Visual Sciences at the UChicago Medicine
and Biological Sciences.
Jason, it's very nice to have you on the podcast today.
To get us started, would you mind please introducing
yourself and telling us a bit about your background?
- Sure. First of all, thank you for having me.
As far as my background goes, I have been in healthcare
for now just over 21 years.
Just a little brief background, I came into healthcare
by chance, uh, through my network.
It wasn't planned that way,
but I decided to stick around these past 21 years.
'cause I've really enjoyed my career.
I've worked in a variety of different settings.
Currently I'm an academic medical center in charge of, uh,
ophthalmology services for the University of Chicago.
But prior to that I've worked for safety net organizations,
public, uh, health organizations.
I've worked for private, uh, medical groups as well as, uh,
non-for-profit, uh, medical groups owned by hospitals
or independent from hospitals.
Uh, I've seen a variety changes over this time
and, uh, I, I've enjoyed every minute
of my time in healthcare.
Uh, a little bit more about my current work.
Um, I have been, uh, traveling here
and there, uh, thanks to, uh, some of the opportunities
through Becker's
and other organizations to speak about employee engagement
and culture and, and how
to improve on those things within organizations.
I also serve as the legislative liaison
and a board member of mgma, uh, Illinois State Chapter.
And, uh, as far as, uh, other professional endeavors, just
as a side non-healthcare related,
I am a plan commissioner in my hometown currently.
So that's just a little bit about me.
- Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so, so much for sharing.
Um, and to jump right into the real questions I wanted
to ask you for today, the first thing I wanted to, um,
address is what are the biggest issues you're following in
ophthalmology right now?
- Sure. So I, I think there's, uh, two different,
uh, issues and they're kind of competing one A, one B,
so I think they're both important.
Uh, recently I traveled to Austin, Texas
to attend the A UPO conference.
Um, it is the, uh, association of university professors
of Ophthalmology had a chance to meet many
of my colleagues throughout the United States.
And I think when we talked about this, Medicare cuts
every specialty, everybody, no matter which, uh,
service you're providing, in what setting, whether you're,
uh, you know, in an urgent care center,
you're providing GI services, ophthalmology,
everyone is dealing with the cuts.
And the cuts. Even small cuts are drastic
because as expenses go up,
as we've seen over the last couple years since we've come
out of covid, uh, it can be detrimental
to certain healthcare organizations bottom line.
And in many cases, we've seen certain organizations either
have to be purchased, merge, or they cease to exist.
So that, that is of, I think, everyone's concern,
not just in ophthalmology, but throughout the United States
if you are a healthcare provider.
I think one B to that is specific to ophthalmology.
Some of the changes in some
of the states in the United States as far as, uh,
reimbursement specifically to, uh, changes
with certain plans of making any kind of surgical services,
uh, site agnostic, meaning if I need to have a cataract done
currently, many plans offer that to be done in an OR
or an A SC, but insurance companies are starting to change
that, where they want the care to be
provided in the lowest cost setting.
And so the reimbursement, whether it's done in the OR
or the A SC, will be the lowest cost,
which will be the a SC reimbursement.
And that will also hit the bottom line
of some ophthalmology groups
and departments throughout the
United States as that changes.
So that's on the radar as well for us.
- Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that.
And is there anything
that's happening right now in your organization
or anything that you're doing that you're most excited about
or anything that's making you nervous?
- You know, I, I would say, you know, specific
to my organization, I'm very fortunate
to be able to work here.
I have a, a wonderful chair, uh, senior Harry Psad, uh,
named full chair last year.
He brought me in in 2022.
Um, as far as my department goes, we've had a lot
of positive changes and expansion of our department.
The university itself has had a lot
of good positive expansion.
Uh, Dean Mark Anderson is, was brought in, uh,
I think at this point a little,
little over a year ago there, thereabouts,
maybe a little less than a year.
And he has really brought, uh, really good
strategic plan and a approachable culture
to the organization that's palatable.
People notice. And I think the leaders
that have been brought in
after him, uh, exemplify that culture, culture
of positivity, culture of inclusion.
And I think that along with some
of our more strategic changes, including our new, uh,
Crownpoint Hospital
and, uh, ambulatory center, which will be open
and about a month or two, um, our partnership
and purchase of 51% of, uh, advent Health's Midwest, uh,
medical group and four hospitals in the suburban area.
A lot of those expansions, those are all positive things.
I do enjoy the progressiveness of University of Chicago
and the direction that it's going.
As far as things that make me nervous, I think that's more
of a global issue.
I think when I think about healthcare.
And I remember I was at a Becker's event speaking, uh,
this past fall.
And similar question was asked
of me if there's anything I could change,
which I'm gonna kind of pivot and,
and answer your question with the same answer.
I think the lack of physicians
and providers in this country,
you were really starting to see the pinch.
Um, now that many of the baby boomers have retired
or are retiring in multiple numbers every day, um,
you are seeing a disproportionate amount of people
who need a certain level of high acuity care
or just a certain amount of care.
And we don't have the number of physicians
or providers to get those patients in.
I, even myself, when I've needed appointments
with different organizations,
I've noticed a little bit more delays than I would've
noticed five years ago, 10 years ago.
Um, everyone's feeling the pinch.
We probably don't have enough time on the podcast to go over
what the fixes are solutions,
but I would say that is kind of point of mind of
what makes me nervous, makes me nervous for my generation.
I'm in my mid forties, makes me more nervous for people
that are my child's age.
So that is something that's heavy on my mind.
- Yeah, definitely. I completely, completely agree.
Um, and, and kind of on that same topic, you know,
with the culture of healthcare rapidly changing
and people coming
and going, I wonder if there's any advice you've received
that you can share with us?
- Sure. I mean, as far as a leader goes,
if we're talking about, um, how you can keep an organization
as stable as possible
and what you can do within your own power, your own span
of control, I, I think there's a few different things.
I think being yourself is important.
That was a good piece of advice I received.
I remember my CFO at Advent, uh, good 10 years ago,
Rick Byer gave me that advice.
And in any situation, being yourself is important.
Um, people trust those that they like,
um, those that they feel comfortable with, um,
they'll do more business with you.
They'll, they'll be more agreeable to work
with you and trust is earned.
But if you are upfront yourself,
if you're upfront transparent, if you're upfront, honest,
both good and bad, because usually it's very easy to manage
and, and supervise when everything is positive.
But even when things are negative, if you are truthful
and transparent and you are yourself, you'd be surprised,
even the toughest environments, what you and your colleagues
and, and the folks that you work with can get through.
- Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that.
And Jason, before I let you go, the last thing I wanted
to ask you is, what would the most effective healthcare
leaders need in order to be successful in the next two
to three years, do you think?
- Sure. So I think it is, uh, a little bit of a,
a couple different buckets.
I think if you are someone that's a healthcare leader,
whether you are in a practice manager role
or you're in a director role or,
or something a little bit higher, VP
or c-suite, I think as I mentioned prior,
I think being honest
and transparent, having a high level
of motion intelligence is very important so that you're seen
as trusted, you're seen as approachable.
So I think those are things that can spawn
and develop good culture, good relationships, and usually,
or hopefully a, a positive, uh, bottom line.
And most importantly, an engaged base of patients that, uh,
both increase in number
but increase in compliance as far as some of their, uh,
healthcare quality outcomes as your physicians and
and advanced practice providers work with them
and your team works with them.
I think the other things that are important too is
to have leaders that understand the difference.
And I heard this, I think it was on an Instagram reel
and I, I can't remember who it was from, so I apologize,
I'm not giving credit, but it is not my own, um,
chasing the noise versus looking
for the sound or hearing the sound.
And I think a lot of times as leaders, we get
very much inundated with a lot of the issues
and yes, we need to deal with them.
But I think understanding root causes quickly
and being able to reduce the noise, so to speak, as I'm kind
of sharing with you, I think it's important so
that we can be more progressive in our approach of, of
how do we wanna expand in a certain market?
How do we want to improve a certain program?
How do we want to improve things such
as the bottom line or even morale?
I think understanding those root
causes are very, very important.
I think having the pulse on what's going on in whatever
market, I think this is applicable beyond healthcare,
but understanding what having vision means,
both short term, medium term, and long term.
And if you can understand that
and you can understand trends kind of before they happen
or as trends happen, how do you pivot and not just react
but be proactive.
And we've seen this all the time in the NFL, right?
You have coaches who understand when rule changes, how to
maximize rewards and benefits from those rule changes
and ones that don't.
And so kind of using all those examples together,
I think it's important being, having vision
and being proactive,
but in a way that you're not chasing just noise.
You're not just putting out fires, is just doing
that is not gonna be productive long term.
And in the end, your team will get frustrated.
Nothing will really progress and you'll look back
and say, that was a lost opportunity.
But hopefully people will heed this advice.
And uh, certainly, um, if anybody wanted to chat about it,
I have a profile on LinkedIn, they can message me
and I always love to just chat about shop, so to speak.
- Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much
for sharing those final thoughts.
It's definitely been an amazing and
and informative discussion.
So again, I wanna thank you so much
for coming up at this healthcare podcast
and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- Thank you so much. Have a good afternoon. You too.