Chance to head CSHP attracted Florida native New CEO envisions doctors uniting to improve industry

Brian Newsome

Jul. 13, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Until a few weeks ago, Deborah L. Chandler's only home had been Florida, where she was born and raised and built a successful career as a health care executive. But the 47-yearold mother of two was recently lured from the Sunshine State to Colorado Springs to take over its largest physician-owned practice. Chandler began work June 23 as chief executive officer and executive vice president of Colorado Springs Health Partners.

Chandler's work in health care began in her early 20s, when she became a nuclear medicine technologist for a group of cardiologists. She soon became business manager, and a few years later she founded The Orlando Heart Center. Chandler holds a bachelor's degree in business from the University of South Florida's New College Campus in Sarasota, and a master of business administration from Rollins College, in Orlando, Fla.

She spent 10 years at Anchor Health Centers, growing the practice from 13 primary care physicians to 70 physicians of multiple specialties.

At CSHP, she will take over a 90-physician practice and oversee two major expansion projects. In the next year the group's northern Colorado Springs office will be expanded by more than 30,000 square feet, and construction will begin on a 100,000-squarefoot office in west-central Colorado Springs.

Question: Why did you take this job?

Answer: I had a head hunter call me about CSHP probably about the end of last year some time, and this group was looking for a CEO with experience like mine.

It was a long way away, but I was intrigued by the group. One thing I've always been very careful of in my profession is, one, I'm a long-termer. I tend to spend a long time with a facility.

Two is making sure I'm working with quality physicians. In Florida, in the last position I was at, I really had done what I wanted to do there. The group was very successful. We were the largest group, actually, in southwest Florida and probably handled about 50 percent of the patients in the area.

Q: What is your vision for CSHP?

A: The vision would be to continue with what I think CSHP has done very well in the community, which is, one, trying to offer patients a collaborative experience in health care when they come to the doctor.

We have the best and probably the largest primary care base on the Front Range ... but on top of that we're able to offer some of the highest-quality specialists in town. CSHP is more of a mature business model, and they really want to continue to be as successful as they have been, and that's what I want to do is continue that success.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing CSHP?

A: Well, I think obviously the economy right now is challenging for all of us, and we've seen our patient volumes dropping off. And mainly I think it's because people are losing insurance; we hear about layoffis all over, the cost of gas.

Health care's feeling it now, too. In light of that, we also probably have a good chance of possibly changing the government, so sentiments can change, and that's a little scary, particularly with the aging population and Medicare reimbursements.

The physicians, like many industries, are facing rising costs in the face of dropping reimbursements.

Q: What is the top issue in health care this election year?

A: It's going to be delivery. There are so many things that need to be fixed. I'm not an advocate of universal health care by any means, but I think if we can just fix some of the antiquated administrative systems we use that the insurance companies have created, really, we've gotta all work together to cut the administrative costs.

We (at CSHP) have 100 people, and that's all they do is try to figure out how to get us paid for what we do. Physicians need to be part of the solution. Too many times insurance companies come up with it, government comes up with it, attorneys come up with it, but then physicians get left trying to figure out how to handle it.

Q: What's on your to-do list?

A: As a new CEO, the first thing I have to come in and look at is what are we spending money on? What is the best deployment of our staff ? What is going to be the best thing for our patients? We're going to put up two pretty sizeable buildings.

We're a private health care organization. We don't have funding coming in to help us with that stuffi. We also want to continue to upgrade our technology. The most exciting thing, I think ... is we have a new electronic health record (system) going in. That's another one of my claims to fame is technology. I'm very technology savvy.

Q: Where do you see primary care in 10 years?

A: Well, let's hope it's where it is now, because we all know that (primary care) is really the crux of the model. I just see us asking primary care to do more with less, and hopefully they'll be able to keep up with that by keeping up with technology and using extenders (nondoctors) where it's appropriate.

And I think providing education to patients. We've really gotta focus on taking better care of ourselves.

Q: How is the national shortage of primary care physicians affecting CSHP?

A: It used to be a lot easier to get primary care physicians. To get a good primary care internist out in the office these days is probably the hardest one (doctor) to find.

Q: How does El Paso County generally compare with where you came from?

A: Our Medicare (patient load) is just under 24 percent, compared to where I came from, where we were 64 percent Medicare. But on the other side, though, communities with more Medicare tend to get paid higher.

In Colorado, what I've discovered is we get paid about 30 percent less to care for a Medicare patient than in Florida, which is amazing to me because it's not any less expensive to care for a Medicare patient in Colorado than it is in Florida. The seniors here have trouble finding physicians to take care of them.

Q: What's next for health care?

A: I really think health care providers in general are going to start working more together, because I think they're realizing that it doesn't help to compete when there's enough business for everyone. We can certainly work together to provide better coordinated care for patients and not make it confusing for patients.

Q: What can doctors do better?

A: Probably the most frustrating thing, I think, for a patient is the lack of communication. A primary care doctor sends a patient to the orthopedist to get something fixed, or to the surgeon to get something removed, or to the cardiologist to evaluate, and I think many times the communication between those physicians is poor.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0198 or brian.newsome@gazette.com. Questions and answers are edited for space and clarity.

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