Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Evaluating 2020 Data—Is it Useful or Not?

By Lee Ann Lambdin 

When 2020 budgets and strategic plans were set in the fall of 2019, no one could have imagined that by the following March, they’d be useless. Plans created for 2021 may be no better off, as they were established in the midst of a pandemic. How can strategic planners start again? What data and analytics should be used when 2020 trending is out of the question?

This is the first post of a series where we’ll discuss how strategic planners can regain focus, make sense of the data collected during COVID-19, and approach planning for the future. In this post, we’ll discuss how to approach 2020 data differently. In the next two posts, we’ll offer some actionable advice. 

Let’s dive in and talk about how to reconcile 2020 data and use it effectively in strategic planning.

Why This Relationship is Critical for the Success of Both Organizations

By Megan Reeves

Most hospital associations identify as the principal advocate for their respective state's hospitals and healthcare systems. While they exist to serve and support, their essential value is sometimes overlooked or taken for granted. In this post, we’ll cover some of the top reasons hospitals need their state associations and how this partnership can be crucial to growth. We’ll also touch on why hospitals are critical to the associations as well. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and its value increases the more each partner invests in the other.

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.

Does your hospital have a good strategic planning process in place? How frequently is the plan updated and does it impact your day-to-day work and growth planning? Take this short quiz and find out how your team is doing with strategic planning!

With this quiz, you'll receive:

• Immediate feedback as to how good your team is at strategic planning
• Tips and best practices for improving your strategic planning process
• Insights about the value of strategic planning to meet growth, quality, service, and physician relations goals

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.

A Look At the Healthiest and Unhealthiest ZIPs in the US

By Gavin Chance 

Even more so than in the past, health and wellness are top of mind as we begin a new year. Americans everywhere are setting New Year’s resolutions and hoping for a healthier, happier 2021.

It can be beneficial to understand the past state of our health as we collectively look to the future and make plans for improvement. This infographic shares statistics and trends about our health as a country, focusing on the following information from 2018:

• The average amount spent on health

• The average number of visits to the doctor

• The number of cigarettes smoked

• The average amount spent on prescription drugs

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.

Where and Why We’re Experiencing Data Interruptions 

By Mike McDonald, Lee Ann Lambdin, and Hank Neuhoff

Our team is currently encountering delays in data reporting. The reasons for these delays are mixed, but they all seem to tie back in some way to COVID-19. In this post, we’ll discuss a few of the hold-ups we’ve encountered and what we’re learning about why states are struggling to deliver 2020 data on time. 

How Our Purpose, Niche, and Story Are Designed to Help You Succeed

By Jason Moore

We recently held our annual Town Hall, which is a time set aside for reflection and preparation for the new year. Following the pattern of most everything else in 2020, this year’s Town Hall looked different from the past. It was virtual and shorter in length in an effort to be mindful of the taxing nature of multi-hour video meetings. 

One consistency from the past was that much of the time was spent reflecting on our purpose, niche, and the ongoing evolution of our company story. This trifecta encompasses what makes our company unique, our “special sauce,” if you will. 

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.