The Risky Health Care Business - Carolyn Johnsen, Partner at Dickinson Wright

Carolyn Johnsen, Partner at Dickinson Wright

02/13/24 • 37 min

What she does: CJ is a partner at Dickinson Wright in Phoenix, Arizona and spearheaded the formation of Dickinson Wright's Distressed Health Care Restructuring Group. CJ's experience includes creating complex plans of reorganization for multi-million dollar companies in a wide-range of industries, including healthcare, mortgage lending, and real estate among others. She has also guided numerous boards and senior managers in developing strategies and solutions for revising operations and restructuring debt to generate the emergence of a stronger business through bankruptcy, or to take advantage of acquisition and sale opportunities, including the application of bankruptcy procedures favorable to corporate securities regulation compliance. In addition, CJ has negotiated multiple multi-million dollar transactions with lenders, investment bankers and brokers, asset purchasers and sellers, and governmental agencies. CJ has published extensive writings and over 100 speaking presentations to educate clients, lawyers, accountants and corporate representatives on bankruptcy, restructuring, sales and acquisitions from a business perspective.

On risk: "You have to get down to the business aspects of it [risk], it's in the health care space, it's no different than any other business in a way because it's a question of cash in and cash out. And the problem that's unique to the health care industry is just the enormous regulation and that makes it more difficult to predict ... If you are looking at risk, you're looking at needing a business plan, just like any other business, you're going to need to know going in okay, what is A to B, what is the B? Here's A, we're sitting here today, where are we trying to be at B? ... It's been a very difficult time risk-wise for health care because of those particular factors [labor shortages, labor costs, inflation, reimbursement fluidity], which probably every other business is suffering somewhat the same problems. But like I said, the risk all gets back to having a good game plan"

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Samantha Arth, Senior Director at Cleveland Clinic

What she does: Sam is the is the Senior Director of Advertising, Analytics, and Partnerships at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where she works to shape the institution's global brand and achieve transformative results in healthcare marketing. She leads the enterprise’s advertising efforts, creative development, strategic partnerships, and data science teams.

On risk: "There's too much information for a doctor to be the sole provider of content or information to a patient ... A lot of risks when it comes to health care marketing that is not in other industries. We have HIPAA concerns, run a risk of also investing that much money, sensitivity and personalization, privacy, using information correctly ... Keeping up with regulation and privacy is key, you cannot not do that ... When it comes to spending $1 from a nonprofit, you definitely have to justify that. You have to do that everywhere but that dollar could be reinvested into clinical care. So you need to make sure that you're being very careful and being a good steward of resources ... There are a lot of competitors running ads, you see them on billboards, you see them on digital ads, they're all over social, it is a very hot space. So there's definitely concern about that too, because that could just be a spending game. And that could be to what end, we could just go toe-to-toe with other health care competitors. And then we could just be out pricing each other ... Patients have a lot of options. And so this should be a concern for you. Because if you aren't doing it, your competitor probably is."

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Rebecca Adelman, Founder at Adelman Law Firm

What she does: Rebecca is the founder of Adelman Law Firm in Tennessee. Her practice is concentrated in healthcare and insurance defense and business litigation, and includes representation of insurance companies and long-term care providers and their insurers - both regionally and nationally. The firm also provides claims management services to senior living insurance companies. Rebecca is involved in state and national legislative matters on behalf of the healthcare industry and serves as Legal Advisor for the American Assisted Living Nurses Association and the National Association of Health Care Assistants. She founded the National Long-Term Care Defense Summit, co-founded the Adelman-Mettle Palliative Care Alliance, and is a member of Claims and Litigation Management Alliance. In addition, Rebecca is a published author and national speaker and contributor.

On risk: "Risk in senior living is multifaceted, there are so many aspects of senior living ... How we define, view, and think about risk, really depends on that we all agree there are varying types of risks in senior living. There's obvious risks of injury, or just an incident and an outcome, a negative outcome, but then there are a lot of other risks, emerging risks, and some smoldering risks, all sorts of risks embedded in all of these little subparts of the ecosystem ... There's so much at stake where risk is concerned in senior living that the importance of considering it cannot be overemphasized. We need to really appreciate how risk is managed in organizations because risk management is everyone's business, it's everyone's responsibility ... From my vantage point along the whole risk spectrum, I'm showing up at the 9s and the 10s and moving down the risk spectrum into the 6s and 7s. The real place for everyone to begin in its least complex form, with all types of risk management, to mitigate risks, to hopefully eliminate risk, certainly to identify it so it doesn't come up, is really when it's in the 1s and the 2s. Proactivity would be the word of the day ... Here's the ticket, the real small key that opens up the big door is implementation. You've got to implement across your organization."

The Risky Health Care Business - Carolyn Johnsen, Partner at Dickinson Wright

Transcript

Scott Nelson 0:01

Welcome to The Risky Health Care Business Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from expert voices in and around the United States health care world with a mission to inform, educate, and help health care organizations and individuals, ranging from one doctor practices to large integrated systems and organizations throughout the dental, medical, and veterinary health care industry with risk, while hopefully having s