Bill is the President and CEO of Constellation, a “growing partnership of mutual liability insurers that unite to provide solutions and support to physicians”, such as insurance for medical malpractice lawsuits and providing stress management for both the physicians and the injured patients. Based out of Saint Paul, MN, Bill’s main role is to provide leadership in both financial and operational direction. Bill encourages students to discover their value proposition and learn how to sell themselves to potential employers.
Transcript
Hi, I'm Bill McDonough. I'm a CEO of an insurance company called Constellation. We deal with healthcare, hospitals, doctors, healthcare providers. What we do is we provide medical malpractice insurance, so if something goes wrong, if there's an unexpected event and they're sued, we not only defend them but we also, we protect their reputation, but more importantly what we do is deal with the stress of the situation. So, we look to take care of the providers, the physicians, but also the injured patients. Providing leadership is the most important thing, providing a strategic direction for the organization, but probably a cheerleader more than anything else. Trying to keep people motivated. You know, I've been in this business a long time, so I know what people are dealing with, and it's difficult. Physicians and healthcare providers are under enormous stress and so that stress is transferred. So a lot of it is trying to help provide support and direction. Yeah, there's enormous uncertainty right now in healthcare, so physicians, in particular, and nurses are feeling that stress. Healthcare institutions, there's an uncertain time, they don't know about reimbursement and so costs are an issue and so just imagine if you're going to the doctor's office and you're used to having a 20 minute appointment, and now you've got 10 minutes. So a physician has to try to understand what's going on with patients, try to diagnose that patient in 10 minutes or less. And that's enormously stressful. So they're seeing more patients, they're dealing with more complex issues, they're dealing with people from all over the world so language is an issue, education is an issue, so there's enormous stresses. So we've got a leadership team, and when I talk about direction that's really from a financial standpoint to make sure the company's sound and moving forward but also what are those services that we can provide. Healthcare is changing dramatically, and how can we help to provide support. One thing, as an example, would be litigation support. So when a physician or a nurse or somebody is sued, it's a very personal event, you know. Their credibility is challenged, their training and education is being challenged. They don't know how long the litigation process takes, sometimes it's years. So we provide a psychiatrist or a psychologist to meet with them on a regular basis and help them understand, help them through the process. And also work with injured patients to try to put their lives together to the extent that we can.
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