Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

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.

Put Your CHNA to Work to Address these Issues 

By Brett Barrier

Over the past several years, Stratasan’s Strategic Advisory Services team has completed more than 50 CHNAs. This work is done side by side with a hospital and their community in an effort to assess the health of the community and develop a plan for addressing top health concerns. Over time we’ve noted trends in common health concerns and how community involvement is so important to make the changes needed to correct these issues. In this post, we’ll discuss these findings in more detail.

Leverage Adjustable Confidence Scoring for Empowered Payer Negotiations

By Hannah Killian and James Porter

In survey research¹, a confidence level is applied to express how confident a researcher is in the data obtained from a population sample. A confidence level lets someone know if they can trust the research data to make decisions. 

Similarly, a confidence level (or score), when applied to all-payer claims data (APCD), indicates the trustworthiness of this data for making healthcare decisions. It’s a metric that ensures integrity and can empower a provider to use this data with greater assurance. 

Greater data confidence can be useful when pursuing a number of healthcare planning initiatives. In this post, we’ll discuss specifically how an adjustable confidence-scoring system is valuable when preparing for provider-payer reimbursement negotiations. Equipped with this tool, providers can:

1. Experience data with certainty, knowing that the cleaning and curation work has already been done 
2. Apply their intuition, since variability can be adjusted to allow for the application of local knowledge
3. Approach negotiations empowered by data insights, assured that the data they’re relying upon to make decisions is trustworthy

Let's get started discussing each of these factors in more detail. 

Content, Training, and Community for Healthcare Professionals

By Stephanie Johnson

Life in the healthcare industry has undoubtedly been turned upside down. Whether you’ve been pulled to the front-lines providing medical care, or working on the business behind the scenes, your priorities have shifted. 

In the hopes of supporting your current work situation, we've launched StrataCares: COVID-19, where we’re providing virtual training sessions, curated educational content, and opportunities to connect. Each offering has been developed with our collective “new normal” in mind and is intended to be relevant to what you need now.

Tips for Shifting to a More Aggressive Virtual Care Growth Strategy

By Brian C. Young and Lee Ann Lambdin

Hospitals and caregivers across our country are pivoting in response to COVID-19. While the impact on individual hospitals varies greatly, a common theme for all providers is the need to keep patients at home, whenever possible, for the safety of both patients and providers. This has opened the door for telehealth growth and we’re witnessing a rapid shift from a previously deliberate adoption path to a record pace of uptake. 

“Telehealth is bridging the gap between people, physicians, and health systems, enabling everyone, especially symptomatic patients, to stay at home and communicate with physicians through virtual channels, helping to reduce the spread of the virus to mass populations and the medical staff on the frontlines,” said Dedi Gilad, CEO, and co-founder of Tyto Care, a telehealth technology company, in this Healthcare IT News article. 

So what is the future for telehealth, after the current “stay home” mandates are lifted? How can hospital planners prepare for a change in strategy in light of our collective embrace of virtual technologies?

Keys to Creating Win-Win Scenarios for Everyone Involved

By Tony Camarata

The weight of the decisions made during payer-provider contract negotiations is lost on no one. The terms and contract details agreed upon during these discussions will considerably impact your operations for at least the next year, if not longer. It’s helpful to remember that payers, too, come to these meetings mindful of the implications and with their own set of financial pressures. But with the right preparation and data insights, your next round of payer negotiations can be your most productive yet. Below are three steps we’d recommend you take before your next payer meeting to ensure a more favorable outcome for all parties involved.

The COVID-19 virus has turned all of our lives upside-down, but in your role as healthcare providers, you're experiencing stresses and concerns that you've never faced before. Our team stands in awe of the courageous work you’re doing. You’re the unsung heroes, sacrificing so much to care for your community. For that, we applaud you!

The Stratasan team is here to offer our help in any way we can. Working from our home offices, we will continue to provide you the same level of support we always have, now just with a slightly altered focus. To that end, here are a few ways we hope to be of assistance:

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.

How to Stay Productive and Healthy in a COVID-19 Remote-First World

By Carly Farlow and Jennifer Keller

COVID-19 is throwing us all for a loop in so many ways. Those who are able to, are shifting to a work from home (WFH) reality. Some are experiencing WFH for the first time, under the duress of self-isolation, and for families, with the added bonus of having new office associates... our children. When you’re used to going into an office everyday, shifting to a remote-first work environment can be challenging as you and your team adjust to new rhythms, distractions, schedules, and expectations. Recognizing that this virus may keep us all working remotely for some time, it’s critical that this setup not be looked at as a temporary situation. For the sake of everyone's mental health and job productivity, it’s advisable to take some steps now to make this new arrangement more amenable and pleasant. 

Recruit and Retain the Right Physicians for Your Market

By Lee Ann Lambdin

It’s well documented that there will be a continued shortage of physicians in the U.S. in the years to come. The Association of American Medical Colleges cites that there will be a deficit of between 61,700 and 94,700 physicians by 2025.¹ This knowledge highlights the need for hospitals to regularly conduct a community physician and provider demand analysis to continue to meet the needs of their community, grow service lines, and recruit the physicians they need. In this post, we’ll discuss the best way to do this analysis—the different methodologies used and our recommended process.