SROA's Newest Member-at-Large - Mike Grindstaff
By Tammy McCausland
SROA’s Newest Member-at-Large
Mike Grindstaff, director, Radiation Oncology at TriHealth Cancer Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, is SROA’s new member-at-large. He participated in a Q&A to talk about his new role.
Q: Why did you decide to run for member-at-large?
A: The time is right, in terms of where I’m at in my career, and my employer is very supportive of me giving back to my society’s membership. I felt it was my turn to step up to the plate, to continue the work the society founders and others have done.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish during your tenure?
A: My goal is use my 29 years’ experience to help build on the foundation. We need to make sure we’re focusing, which I think SROA’s mentor/mentee program does, on our future leaders. The biggest issue we face is the proposed Radiation Oncology APM (RO-APM) model. It would likely have been enacted this year had the pandemic not hit; we’ve spent a lot of time within my organization on that, and I want to be able to help radiation oncology administrators throughout the country make sure they’re prepared for the model once it comes.
Q: Have you volunteered with SROA in other capacities?
A: I was involved with the original Membership Committee, and I have volunteered on various committees, including the Reimbursement & Economics Committee.
Q: What do you see as the most pressing issues for SROA and radiation oncology?
A: Mentoring our future leaders. I have a couple of new leaders. We’re expanding greatly, and I see that they want to take on added responsibilities. As someone with many years of leadership experience, I think mentoring new leaders is important because the job market’s changed over the last 20 years.
I’d also like to help, if I can, with different organizations gaining revenue capital, which is likely going to be harder, especially now. Most budgets have probably been flat, but I think ROIs are important with helping people realize that we still have an obligation to our patients and to offer the best technology that money can buy. It might be a case where members reach out and ask, “What’s the best bang for our buck right now because our money’s not going to go as far as it did before?”
I think the RO-APM model will likely come back next year at some point, so I want members to be prepared to do more with how we’re going to treat patients. With the model, it’s not just reimbursement, each facility is going to have to look at workflow and the mechanism in which they receive referrals. Members must be able to look at their analytics and say, “This is where our referral patterns are coming.” If they have multidisciplinary clinics, they’ll have to figure out whether it’s the right venue for them to be seeing the patient right then and there.
Q: How have you benefited from being a member of SROA?
A: The peers have been great, especially being able to reach out through SROA Connect to bounce ideas off my peers. I have a small group of members from Kansas to Oklahoma to Baltimore. We routinely email one another about various things—it’s like a team. I’ve enjoyed and benefited from the comradery and the peer review, being able to see what other members are doing, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Being able to engage with peers is an invaluable member asset.
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