Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

And How the Right Tools Can Help You Know Where to Grow

By Jennifer Keller

Our entire Stratasan team knows the importance of deeply understanding the needs and desires of the healthcare strategists, marketers, physician liaisons and other decision-makers we serve. We're constantly working to identify our customers' motivations, challenges and struggles, so we can more effectively support them and better tailor our products and services to capably address their top priorities.

It was with this in mind that we recently brought in outside experts to help bridge knowledge gaps and amplify internal understanding of the always complex, always changing acute care, ancillary and payer spaces. This amazing team - highly skilled at conducting in-depth qualitative research and utilizing simple frameworks to capture a central message - served us well, both confirming what we already knew and uncovering many interesting new insights. In this post, we’ll share some common themes from our research, and how we’re pivoting our outreach to more closely align with the ways we provide value.

by Tony Camarata

The relationship between physicians and provider facilities is impacting much of the changing landscape of healthcare. Physician Liaisons are the face, voice, and ears of this demanding effort. Tasked with building relationships that will drive growth and revenue, this position needs the support of directionally correct, objective data that can support and enhance their market  assessments. After all, as the Physician Liaison, you are the market expert.

2021 has been a year full of learning, growing, and overcoming for all of us. We hope Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series has been a bright spot in your week, delivering insight and inspiring creativity. We discussed how to widen outpatient planning opportunities, learned how to use reimbursement data when entering new markets, discovered how to access the latest population data for better strategic planning, and much more.

As we close out the year, we thought it'd be helpful to share our five most popular blog posts of 2021. These posts received the most views and seemed to provide useful growth guidance to you, our readers. If you’re staying home for the holidays or enjoying some downtime before the new year begins, check out these posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.

Address Blockages and Pinpoint Opportunities for Growth

By Jennifer Keller

Retaining and improving bottom line profits is a key priority for healthcare planners and strategists. Often when considering how to grow, patient outmigration and physician referral leakage are top of mind. Patient retention and well-maintained physician relationships are key to maintaining a strong financial standing, especially for rural hospitals.

“25% of rural hospitals nationwide are at a high risk of closing unless their financial situations improve. Of these hospitals, 82% are considered highly essential to their communities,” according to an annual Guidehouse analysis.

Many hospitals within close proximity to large U.S. cities are facing a serious financial challenge: patients who outmigrate to urban hospitals. This can happen due to patient preference or a physician referral, but it’s leading to lost revenue either way. 

It’s important to note though, this is not solely a rural hospital concern. A strong physician relations strategy is needed in many large urban areas to ensure you don’t lose patients to the large competitor right down the street.

How Stratasan Partnered with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center to Create Success

The Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC) recently celebrated 11 years of operation with the launch of a new website. Alongside the website, they also released their first published annual report, which is a collection of 10 years of EC stories and achievements. Stratasan is honored to be featured on the website and in this annual report.

While the EC commemorates its notable accomplishment, Stratasan is also celebrating a big anniversary; May marks 10 years since our founding. For the past 10 years, our team of analysts, engineers, growth and product developers have been working to improve the healthcare space and change the way hospitals use data and analytics.

The close timing of our celebrations is no coincidence, as Stratasan’s story is closely tied to that of the EC. In this post, we’ll share how Stratasan and the EC are fortuitously linked and how Stratasan became the EC’s very first program participant in 2010.

Improve Your Negotiation Strategy and Establish Favorable Market Rates

By Jennifer Keller

When talking to clients in the midst of scaling operations in a new market, the question of how to establish attractive market rates often comes up. Entering a new market with rates too high can be a deterrent for growth and setting the right rates can be challenging.

The right data, insights, and tools are key to identifying the sweet spot when setting rates and planning for payer negotiations.  

Often, payer negotiations are driven by a team’s working knowledge of the market rates, or based on insufficient input from outside consultants. In this post, we’ll discuss how to use reimbursement data effectively when entering new markets and preparing for negotiations. 

We’ll discuss what data is needed, what new insights can be found, and how the right data can help your organization grow more successfully.

2020 has been a year full of learning, growing, and overcoming for all of us. We hope Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series has been a bright spot in your week, delivering insight and inspiring creativity. We uncovered innovative solutions to the healthcare revenue crisis, learned how to identify service line opportunities, discovered how new diagnosis and procedure codes are created, and much more.

As we close out the year, we thought it'd be helpful to share our five most popular blog posts of 2020. These posts received the most views and seemed to provide useful growth guidance to you, our readers. If you’re staying home for the holidays or enjoying some downtime before the new year begins, check out these posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.

When entering payer/provider reimbursement negotiations, the need for data to back your position is critical. The right insights can show how your payer contracts compare to the market, how payer rates have changed over time from facility to facility, and highlight financial opportunity. This intelligence can equip you to more successfully navigate payer negotiations and leave with more favorable reimbursement rates.

The infographic below highlights a particularly helpful data-based insight called Fair Market Reimbursement. This is a reasonable range of reimbursement rates that all providers within a local market receive from a commercial insurer or payer. Created by our partner Ancore Health, the infographic below explains Fair Market Reimbursement in more detail, by answering several common questions.  

Level the Playing Field for More Productive Negotiations

By Jennifer Keller

There’s a discussion across healthcare about the need for greater price transparency. The talk is about whether or not patients should know the hard costs of medical procedures and how much they can expect to pay out of pocket for medical services. Armed with this information, they can shop around for care that fits their quality standards as well as their budget. 

At Stratasan, we feel there’s another layer of healthcare price transparency that’s needed—transparency that can level the playing field in provider-payer reimbursement negotiations. Both providers and payers are in need of more data to inform their negotiating position.

We hope it’s been an incredible year of learning through Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series. We said goodbye to a dear friend, learned the secrets of the DIKW pyramid, uncovered innovative solutions to the healthcare revenue crisis, and much more.

As we close out the year, we thought it would be helpful to share the five most popular blog posts from 2019. These posts received the most views and seemed to provide useful growth guidance to you, our readers. If you’re traveling over the holidays or just enjoying some downtime before the new year begins, check out these posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.