Administrators & Hospital Executives

GEMS Management Philosophy

The management philosophy of Genesis Emergency Medicine Services, LLC is to provide our hospitals with a level of service that is immediately responsive to their needs. Terri L. Serwacki, the CEO of Genesis Emergency Medicine Services Inc, is a nurse by training and has over 14-years of experience in managing Emergency Departments. Dr. Fred Yates is Emergency Medicine residency trained and board certified and has practiced Emergency Medicine for 17 years. Dr. Yates is co-president and Corporate Medical Director for our company. GEMS ability to manage Emergency Department quality assurance, budgets, GEMS physicians, and the Emergency Departments themselves is due to this experience.

Genesis Emergency Medicine Services LLC strongly emphasizes a “team” approach to Emergency Department management. Emergency Services development and management is a very complex and inter-related entity. Multiple departments, organizations, and individual personnel must work in smooth cooperative effort in order to render high quality patient care. We believe no single person or department is any more or less important to the effective operation of the department. It is our goal to establish a true management team at our facilities to address the needs of the community, the Hospital, the attending physicians and the patients.

At Your Service

Genesis Emergency Medicine Services, LLC is presently seeking additional partner hospitals and would be pleased to discuss being a potential partner in your hospital's goal to develop a long-term relationship with your ED management company and our shared commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. GEMS offers a full range of physician staffing and management options that are customized to your individual needs. We pride ourselves on our creative problem solving abilities. GEMS dedicated staff is ready to help augment the steps you have already taken toward providing your attending physician staff and your community with quality Emergency Medicine Services.

With this in mind, we would like to share with you what we feel constitutes successful ED management:

Quality Control:

This is the cornerstone upon which the foundation for GEMS is based. GEMS has turned the traditional model for ED staffing and management upside down because we believe this results in the most economical, efficient and practical method of approach. We strive to provide quality at every step in all of our processes; whether it is in selection of physicians, quality assurance reviews and programs, documentation guidelines or day-to-day problem solving. We are committed to finding and implementing the most time and cost effective processes and methods at our disposal. Basically stated, this means that we recognize that quality and customer satisfaction must be built into every step we take. Doing things right in the first place helps to eliminate problems, mistakes and time-consuming repairs after a problem arises.
Value Added Services:

GEMS is a full service management company. The “value added” services that many companies charge an additional and premium price for, if they provide them at all, are built into our standard operating procedures. We, at GEMS, do not believe that quality patient care can be provided without attention to all the details that go into staffing physicians and the overall management of an Emergency Department. It is for this reason that we offer built in quality improvement and assurance programs, documentation reviews, general volume and patient demographic measuring, patient satisfaction, complaint resolution, charge analysis and a multitude of other services. Each program is individualized to the specific needs of a given facility. What results is global management of your Emergency Department and a partnership between your and our staff. GEMS will not contract with hospitals desiring physician staffing only services as we have a vested interest in the overall quality of management provided by our physicians and to our facilities. The only way we can attain the quality patient care that GEMS is founded upon is to be involved with the day-to-day operations of each of our contracted facilities.
Continuous Quality Improvement: “Good enough” simply is not good enough.

GEMS continually strives to improve all aspects of the services we provide to our contracted facilities. Once the major issues are resolved, GEMS will work with your staff to address the next most important issue, and so on down the line. We also work very hard to provide physicians with “goodness of fit” to each of our facilities. It is simply a matter of commitment to doing the best job we possibly can for your facility. GEMS provides personal and ongoing involvement to each of our contracted facilities and takes pride, not only in a well satisfied customer, but in being the premium ED management company available.
Commitment:

GEMS looks at every relationship they enter as a life-long commitment. One of our goals is to never lose a contract because of lack of performance and to carefully select facilities with whom we affiliate to assure a positive working relationship is possible. There is no traditional sales team at GEMS whose sole purpose is to acquire new contracts, regardless of the expectations or circumstances of the facility. Our CEO and Corporate Medical Director are involved in the entire solicitation and acquisition process and personally approve all potential hospital partners.
Personal Involvement:

Not only are the CEO and Corporate Medical Director intimately involved with the selection and management of GEMS contracts but this commitment extends to even deeper involvement. They are available 24-hours a day, 7-days a week to address any needs from our staff, physicians or the personnel of our contracted facilities. It is this level of commitment and involvement that permeates the entire organization.

We look forward to meeting and speaking with you further about how we can help in your journey toward providing quality patient care and improving the image of the “front door” to your hospital.

If you would like additional information or to request a confidential proposal for management, please contact:

Terri L. Serwacki - CEO
Genesis Emergency Medicine Services
122 Carlyle Ave.
Belleville, IL 62220

Office:: (618) 277-5974

Cell:: (618) 980-0405

Fax:: (618) 239-6094

Email:: info@gems-er.com

Frequently Asked Questions

How will GEMS help assure the quality of physicians selected for our facility?: GEMS uses an extensive screening process that involves the facility in the selection of potential candidates. This helps us assure that we are selecting qualified physicians with goodness-of-fit for each of our facilities and dramatically decreases the “revolving door” of physicians that frustrates hospital administrators and overtax your staff.

Does GEMS have any programs to help our facility maximize reimbursement for physician services?: Absolutely! We recognize that it is critical for us to help assure the financial stability of our contracted facilities through maximizing reimbursement. This is done through chart audits and physician education regarding HCFA Documentation Guidelines. GEMS will also work with you to provide a HCFA compliant chart at a price that is likely less than what you are paying now.

We’re looking for a company to take over the billing and collections for professional services. Can GEMS help us with that?

Yes. GEMS sub-contracts with billing companies that specialize in ED coding, billing and collections. These companies typically work for a percentage of collections on professional fees so they are motivated to assist us in optimizing physician documentation, thereby maximizing collections. Depending on your facility’s payer mix and your volume, GEMS may be able to support your contract strictly from these collections. If your payer mix is unfavorable and/or you have low volume, GEMS will still take over the responsibility for coding, billing and collections and your facility will pay GEMS a monthly subsidy to make up the difference between what we can collect and what we need to provide the services you desire.

We can even put you in contact with companies that code ED charts for facility (nursing) fees and return the coded charts to you for billing on a per chart basis or will also bill and collect for a percentage of collections. This is just another example of how GEMS goes above and beyond what you may have come to expect from ED management companies. We want you to feel comfortable calling us for any area where we might be able to help you resolve a problem or to identify a resource you need.

Every ED staffing company says they are “different” from everyone else. Does GEMS claim to be “different” as well? What makes GEMS special?

There are several things that truly makes GEMS different from our competition.

Continuous Quality Improvement, Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement measures are structured into GEMS management plan for each of our facilities. There is no additional cost to you for these services. We include them as part of our service because we believe we cannot execute effective risk management and provide quality patient care without them.
GEMS utilizes an extensive and comprehensive physician screening process to help assure the physicians we are placing in your Emergency Department are qualified, experienced and compassionate. We will involve your staff in the screening process. We take every step possible to help assure we are placing the right physician at the right facility before that physicians ever works a single shift in your Emergency Department, unlike other staffing companies who slot a physician into an opening at a facility and hope he/she does well.
Another key item that makes GEMS different is the personal involvement of the owners in the day-to-day management of our contracts. Unlike other companies that stratify their management staff to the point that you don’t know who to call when you need something, GEMS owners directly and personally manage all contracts. You will be able to reach one of our owners 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

What happens if GEMS places a physician at our facility that just doesn’t work out?

Excellent and legitimate question! We are acutely aware that it is a poor risk management decision to try to coerce or force you to keep a physician working in your Emergency Department that your patients and staff don’t like or trust. On the front end of the process, our screening method is designed to help us select physicians who are qualified and have goodness-of-fit to your facility. You and your staff will be as involved in the selection process of potential candidates as you desire. Even with these careful steps, it may happen that a physician will be placed who fails to meet our mutual expectations.

In this event, we will request the opportunity to counsel the physician. If the concerns are regarding clinical competence or if the physician does not respond positively to our counseling efforts we will replace that physician as quickly as possible by distributing his/her shifts to the remaining physician staff and securing a permanent replacement. Above all, we will be working closely with you to assure a smooth replacement process that does not negatively impact on patient care.

Will we have someone of authority on site, a Medical Director, who is regularly working in our Emergency Department and can help us improve the services we provide?: Yes! GEMS does not accept part time contracts, except under extraordinary circumstances, because we strongly believe that we can’t effectively assist you in managing your Emergency Department under a part time arrangement. The management aspect of our service is critical to the risk management foundation upon which GEMS is built. A major component of our management program is to designate a facility medical director who regularly works shifts for each of our contracts. This physician assists us with the day-to-day operations and needs of your emergency department and is the owners’ eyes and ears at each of our facilities.

What happens if we temporarily don’t have a medical director?: You will still receive the management assistance you desire and that we feel you deserve. If a facility medical director is not designated for your facility at any time, GEMS owners and our regional medical director will intensify our involvement with your facility until the situation is resolved and you once again have a facility medical director.

Who will be responsible for helping us manage the ED?

This is an area where GEMS is very different than other ED management companies. GEMS owners will be directly responsible for oversight and management of your contract and you will be able to contact one of the owners directly for all of your concerns and requests.

GEMS doesn’t have a traditional sales team. GEMS owners personally will meet with you when you request a proposal for management of your ED and will be directly involved in every step of the evaluation and acquisition process, right up to the signing of the contract.

GEMS doesn’t follow the traditional recruitment process that other companies use. GEMS owners and our facility medical directors personally recruit and screen all physician candidates and we involve you and your staff in this process as well.

GEMS doesn’t have a traditional credentialing staff. GEMS CEO personally reviews all application packets for completeness before they are sent to your facility with a request for privileges.

GEMS doesn’t have traditional staffing personnel. We make our medical directors responsible for scheduling the physicians under their charge and our staff is available to them for assistance and secretarial support.

What all this means is that GEMS owners are personally and ultimately responsible for assisting you in every aspect of managing your Emergency Department…and this is the big difference between GEMS and our competition.

With all the services you offer and the direct involvement of the owners, can GEMS really be competitive?: Absolutely! …because we keep our overhead costs at a minimum due to the direct involvement of the owners in managing GEMS and our contracts.

OK, GEMS sounds like exactly what we’re looking for. How do we get a management proposal?: Use the contact button on this page to email us your contact information or call us at (618) 277-5974. We will fax or email you a questionnaire that will assist us in preparing a comprehensive proposal and initial management plan specific to your facility. We will then want to set up an onsite visit to tour your facility and meet with you and your management team. We will officially submit a management proposal to you at that time. We want and feel the need to see your facility and meet with the people we will be dealing with in the management of your ED because we aren’t just looking to add another pin on a map or more revenue to the bottom line. We carefully select the facilities we contract with to assure they are invested in forging a team to manage the ED, not just staff it with physicians. Every facility is not prepared for our level of involvement. We only contract with those who are!

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