MSO: Expanding the Future of Healthcare Services

The Two Faces of MSO Healthcare

MSOs come in two models. The first model takes full or partial ownership of the practice while the second model is geared towards providing administrative services without taking any form of ownership. The efficiency of these two types of MSOs can depend largely on the size and complexity of the organization, so their output can vary from one organization of one model to another.

MSO Acquisition

The first model partners with clinical practices that align with the MSO’s visions when it comes to the size of the practice as well as the location, revenues, and other factors. The acquisition of clinical practices is not the same as traditional sales since established MSOs will be dedicating a team to take inventory with company-specific healthcare and quantitative criteria to assess the clinical practices’ overall performance.

The process can be time consuming since the acquisition team will have to go through a clinical practice’s data to ascertain if the practice is a sound investment for the MSO. Depending on the agreements and negotiations, the acquisition of the clinical practice by the MSO will often result in a smooth transition for both parties, allowing the clinical practice to resume operations that can focus more on delivering quality healthcare.

MSO Administrative Support

MSOs that offer administrative services offer another layer of support to clinical practices and providers. Providers are becoming more eligible for premium incomes through efficient case management, claims adjudications, and other back-end support services. As an integral support system to many providers, MSOs are increasingly seen as important healthcare partners.

MSOs play an essential role in the management of value-based healthcare and population health by providing the manpower and the technology necessary for updated electronic health records (EHRs), care coordination management, and claims lifecycle workflow processing. As a support system, MSOs help keep costs down, encourage clinical practice expansions, and prepare physician integration into the organization.

While MSOs provide the required healthcare support for providers, they, in turn, need assistance in the delivery of their services. Operational issues such as financial management, credentialing, coding, billing, and collection services are often some of the biggest challenges that MSOs have to face.

With trends looking towards more agile and strategic supply chains, MSOs must keep looking for alternative care support and delivery options using technologies for smarter, faster, and more predictive information at their fingertips.

This means that artificial intelligence (AI) will prove to be more valuable than ever to MSOs who need to deliver quality services using real-time analytics to expedite care and increase productivity in non-clinical areas.

Supporting MSOs