HS450 Unit 10 Strategic Plan Example

Three Strategies and Two Endings: A Unit 10 Strategic Plan Carrying an Outpatient Therapy Group From Scan to Dated Indicators

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HS450: Strategic Planning and Change Management for Health Care

Unit 10 Strategic Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Halloway Therapy Partners, its strategies, budgets and every indicator are composite; the sources cited are real.

Executive Summary

Halloway will pursue three strategies over the next three years. First, expand the specialty lines that self-referred, commercially insured and employer-referred patients use, led by pelvic health. Second, stabilize the rural clinics by moving to shared caseloads of one therapist and two assistants, phased from the suburbs outward. Third, contract directly with the five largest self-insured employers in the county. Two things end: the warm-water pool, replaced by a referral partnership with the community center, and new capital for the sports performance center beyond maintenance. The plan is reviewed quarterly and revised annually.

The Situation in Brief

The environmental scan found fourteen external forces and four that bind this year: Medicare Advantage authorization expansion, a rural assistant shortage, annual Medicare fee schedule pressure and the county health system's expanding therapy network. The SWOT analysis found one advantage that survives every VRIO test, the pelvic health program, and concluded that the group's choices had to defend its independent referral sources, grow its one durable advantage and lower its dependence on payers with heavy approval requirements. Revision note: since the scan, Halloway's Medicare Advantage denial rate fell from 11 to 9 percent after training, so authorization remains binding but less urgent.

Strategy 1: Specialty Growth

Expand pelvic health to a second site and a third certified specialist, and add a vestibular program at two clinics. These lines reach patients who self-refer under direct access and patients the hospital network does not serve, which the competitive analysis identified as Halloway's strongest segments.

Indicators: pelvic health visits up 20 percent in year one; vestibular program at break-even by month eighteen; self-referred share of new patients from 11 to 16 percent by year three.

Abandon if: pelvic health visits grow less than 5 percent in year one despite the second site, which would suggest the waitlist reflected scheduling rather than demand.

Strategy 2: Rural Stabilization Through Shared Caseloads

Adopt shared caseloads, beginning at two suburban clinics and reaching the rural clinics only when the readiness assessment's systems checklist is complete for them. Fill both rural assistant vacancies and hold them for twelve months.

Indicators: rural clinic productivity from 72 to 90 percent of target by year two; assistant retention at twelve months; rural clinic margin at break-even by year three.

Abandon if: rural productivity has not improved by 10 points after twelve months of shared caseloads, at which point the board will consider consolidating the two rural clinics into one with a satellite schedule.

Strategy 3: Direct Employer Contracts

Offer the county's five largest self-insured employers a direct musculoskeletal program with episode pricing and quarterly outcome and cost reports. The competitive analysis showed a typical knee episode costing about 40 percent less at Halloway than at the hospital network.

Indicators: one pilot contract signed in year one; three contracts by year three; employer-referred visits reaching 8 percent of volume.

Abandon if: no employer signs a pilot within eighteen months of the first proposal.

Each strategy states the result that would end it, so that the board can tell the difference between patience and denial.

What Ends

The pool closes at the end of the quarter; aquatic therapy continues at the community center under a partnership, which the communication plan sequences. The repair money, 410,000 dollars, is redirected: 160,000 to tablets, scheduling and room changes for the rural clinics, and the rest held for the pelvic health second site. New capital for the sports performance center is limited to maintenance for three years. Its existing margin continues to support other programs.

Resources

Year one requires about 720,000 dollars beyond the operating budget: pelvic health expansion, rural systems, the vestibular program and employer contract development. Sources are the redirected pool repair funds, sports center capital held at maintenance, and the group's existing line of credit for the remainder. Balanced scorecard practice recommends linking each strategic initiative to a budget line and a measure (Kaplan & Norton, 1996), which the indicator table in the appendix does.

Managing the Transition

People will experience these changes as losses before they see gains: aquatic patients and therapists losing their pool, suburban staff carrying a pilot, rural staff waiting for their turn. Transition theory distinguishes the change itself from the psychological transition people go through, and recommends naming losses openly and supporting people through the uncertain middle period (Bridges & Bridges, 2016). The plan does this through the communication plan, the phased caseload rollout and a quarterly staff pulse survey.

Risks Across the Plan

Three risks cut across all three strategies. The first is management attention: the same leadership team will run a second pelvic site, a caseload redesign and employer sales at once. To limit this, the employer strategy starts with one pilot rather than five proposals, and the caseload change starts at two clinics. The second risk is the health system employing the remaining independent surgeons, which would shrink the referral base faster than specialty growth can replace it. The plan answers by deepening ties with the independent practices, sharing outcome reports and placing a therapist in their offices on follow-up days. The third is a bad Medicare year: a fee schedule cut of more than three percent would squeeze the margin that funds everything else. In that case the vestibular program would be deferred first, since it is the newest commitment and the least tested.

How the Plan Was Revised From the Unit Drafts

Earlier unit work changed in three places. The scan's authorization force was downgraded slightly after new denial data. The goal memo's retired twelfth clinic stays retired. And the pool decision, defended in the writer's first seminar position, became a partnership after the mission-margin analysis.

Governance and Review

The leadership team reviews indicators monthly. The board reviews the plan quarterly, with a formal revision each year. Any abandonment threshold that is crossed goes to the next board meeting with a recommendation. Strategic management texts describe this kind of monitoring as what turns a plan into a management system (Ginter et al., 2018).

Choices Deliberately Left Out

Halloway will not try to win referrals from the health system's employed surgeons, which the competitive analysis showed Halloway cannot do. Nor will it open new general orthopedic clinics, which would compete with its own suburban sites, or set targets for Medicare payment, which Halloway cannot control.

Appendix

The appendix holds the indicator table with baselines and dates, the revised environmental scan, the SWOT position statement, the goal memo matrix and the readiness results.

References

Bridges, W., & Bridges, S. (2016). Managing transitions: Making the most of change (4th ed.). Da Capo Lifelong Books.

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations (8th ed.). Wiley.

Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1996). The balanced scorecard: Translating strategy into action. Harvard Business School Press.