Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

More Efficiently, and Effectively, Manage this Valuable Resource

By Morgan Atkins 

A community Physician Needs Analysis (PNA) is a valuable asset for hospitals looking to meet the needs of their community through service line growth and physician and provider recruitment. But in order to successfully execute a PNA, you first need your physician database (or roster) to be accurate.

The details of a physician database—physician retirement dates, specialties, affiliation status, and so much more—provide a more complete understanding of what’s in your market. This database can help you answer questions such as: Where is there an oversupply (or undersupply) of physicians? What are the referral patterns of the physicians in my service area? Answers to these questions can directly impact your physician strategy.

Don't miss this related post: Top Methodologies for Determining Physician Need

Maintaining an up-to-date physician database can be a tedious, and often manual, process. The challenge? Collecting all the right information and ensuring that the data you have is current, since physicians are often moving or changing affiliations. In this post, we’ll share the sources we use, and strategies we employ, to make the process of maintaining an accurate physician database more feasible.

Key Details Related to This Ruling

By Morgan Atkins

On November 15, 2019, the final price transparency rule was issued by CMS. It went into effect on January 1, 2021. Here's what hospitals need to know about the goal of this ruling and what they have to do to achieve compliance. 

The Cliff Notes 

A couple of key points hospitals should keep in mind:

• All hospitals must participate, though it’s not applicable to federally owned hospitals (VA, IHS, Tribal)
• Prices must be updated annually

There are two essential parts to the ruling:

Part 1: Hospitals must share a comprehensive list of standard charges. The list must be in a single machine-readable file format. 

Part 2: Hospitals must share a consumer-friendly list of 300 shoppable services. 

• CMS lists 70 services that must be included in the 300; hospitals can select the other 230
• There’s no requirement for how to post this list, i.e., a machine-readable format is not required. And the listing requirement is waived for hospitals already providing internet-based price estimator tools for patients.

Drive Growth and Provide Quality Care

By Morgan Atkins

While vital to growth, service line development can be risky and typically requires a significant time and financial investment. In order to minimize risk and expand your service offerings more effectively, hospitals need reliable, data-based intelligence to guide their efforts.

In this post, we consider four ways to identify pockets of unmet demand and consider how to add new facilities in these areas. We’ll highlight some common mistakes providers often make and discuss how to get a more detailed understanding of your patient population so you can focus on the right service line growth opportunities.

Uncover the Fundamental Truths Your APCD Should Deliver

By Morgan Atkins and Daniel Dreaden

Not all APCD (all-payer claims data) is created equally. Depending on the data aggregator and clearinghouse used, the APCD offered by any given analytics company can vary significantly.

When choosing a partner to provide your APCD, it can be difficult to discern what’s most important. Many incentives offered may sound nice to have, but could also be distractions to keep you from noticing more critical features that are lacking. As you consider your options, keep these three questions in mind:

• Does this APCD provide patient cohort tracking?
• Will you be able to access submit and remit data?
• Is there transparency into what is being modeled and how?

Let's discuss in more detail each of these questions and why it’s critical to have these clearly answered before signing on with an APCD provider.

Tracking Care Patterns by Cancer Site

By Morgan Atkins and April Adams

Earlier this year, members of the Stratasan team conducted a study to determine if treatment care patterns differ for oncology patients by cancer site. The hypothesis was that the most common treatment path for cancer patients is to first seek surgical treatment, then medical, then radiological. Patients were grouped by their order of transition from surgical, medical, and radiological procedures. 

Below you will find the results of this study.

Key Opportunities Hospitals Leaders Shouldn’t Overlook

By Morgan Atkins

The trials of 2020 have left many in the healthcare industry searching for ways to diversify their income. Due to COVID-19, hospitals across the nation are estimated to lose $200 billion between March 1 and June 30, according to a report from the American Hospital Association. This current financial strain and shaky future prospects are pushing healthcare institutions to find creative ways to keep revenue flowing while still maintaining high-quality care.

Becker’s Hospital Review cites the reimbursement landscape challenges and dwindling patient volumes as two main factors leading at least 29 hospitals across the U.S. to file for bankruptcy this year. In this post, we’ll consider how hospital leaders can turn these leading indicators of distress into golden opportunities for growth.

Uncovering the Diagnosis and Procedure Code Creation Process 

By Carly Farlow, Megan Reeves, and Morgan Atkins

There’s no escaping discussions about the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19, as it’s also called). Every aspect of life has been touched by the spread of it. The respiratory illness COVID-19 was first identified in 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Since then, it’s spread internationally. 

What isn’t widely discussed by the general population is a seemingly small detail that has a significant impact upon the medical community—the necessity of virus response to include the creation of new diagnosis and procedure codes. There are several codes that must be created not only to address a new disease through diagnosis but also through testing.

Increase Productivity and Achieve More as a Team

By Morgan Atkins

For teams looking to create more innovative products and services, it’s key to establish an environment that unites the best thinking from every team. Rather than assigning innovation to one department, open the door for anyone to contribute, especially those with direct access to your customers. Then, for these new ideas to come to life, your organization must also embrace strategies that facilitate cross-department collaboration. 

Here are a few key reasons why cross-department project work is so important:

• Cross-department collaboration fosters a culture of continuous improvement, where employees take ownership of problems and work together to bring about solutions. (KaiNexus) This mentality lessens the opportunity for finger-pointing as everyone is responsible for resolving issues.  
• New ideas are more likely to be embraced when there are key shareholders throughout the company involved in the decision-making process.
• Every team interacts with your customers and product offerings in a unique way, so every perspective is valuable. Feedback from various angles allows for all areas of your company to make ongoing improvements and course corrections.

Utilization and Value in the Wake of an FSER Boom

By Morgan Atkins

Over the last several years, freestanding emergency rooms (FSERs) have seen a boom in popularity. FSERs provide 24/7 emergency care and are physically separate from a hospital campus. The allure of these offsite emergency departments stems from their potential to increase access to healthcare resources. However, FSERs are falling under scrutiny for the lack of price transparency and their tendency to operate in more affluent, populated areas.

Florida's state health regulatory entity, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), provides publicly available data on emergency room visits for the state of Florida. The AHCA data provides a field to differentiate which emergency visits occurred at a hospital-based ER and those at a FSER. Stratasan has analyzed the impact and utilization of FSERs to determine if they are providing a benefit to the communities they serve. Check out our infographic to find out what we learned.

Tell a More Powerful Data Story with the Right Use of Color

By Morgan Atkins 

TED speakers David Grady and Jason Fried share in this infographic that organizations hold more than 3 billion meetings each year and executives spend 40–50 percent of their working hours—or twenty-three hours per week—in meetings. As a healthcare marketer or strategic planner, you can likely relate to these statistics, as you spend much of your time preparing for, leading, or following up on meetings. 

The presentations you create for your meetings can have a major impact on how successful your meetings will be. When your meetings include the delivery of data-based insights, it is especially important for your presentations to include well-designed, colorful visualizations.