Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Adapting Your Growth Strategy to Meet the Needs of Aging and Racially and Ethnically Diverse Patient Populations 

By Michael Shipley
Senior Product Manager

Tags: Blog, physician referral, Stratasan, strategic growth, strategic growth planning, strategic planning, data analytics, data-driven decisions, data strategy, growth planning, health care, health data, health strategist, health strategy, health system, health systems, healthcare, healthcare budget, healthcare planning, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, healthcare strategy, healthcare systems, hospital, hospital planning, hospital strategic planning, hospital strategy, hospitals, Inpatient Statistics, markeitng, Market Share, nashville, Physicians, Population Health Management, referral data, referrals, healthcare market share, marketing research, patient population, service area growth, service line growth, strategic growth plan, physician outreach strategy, Hospital growth plan, healthcare leadership, healthcare market data, hospital growth, physician patterns, patient experience, customer experience, physician strategy, diversity, data confidence, outmigration, physician referral leakage, outpatient, HOPD, 2022, Patient Origin, Syntellis, healthcare annual planning

Tags: physician liaison, Physician Pathway, physician recruitment, physician referral, physician referral tool, physician relations, physician tool, strategic growth, strategic positioning, health care, health strategy, health system, healthcare strategy, hospital strategy, pathways, physician patterns

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.

Tags: physician referral, physician strategy, outmigration, physician referral leakage

Tags: Blog, physician liaison, Physician Pathway, physician recruitment, physician referral, physician referral tool, physician relations, physician tool, strategic growth, strategic positioning, data, health, health care, health strategy, health system, healthcare, healthcare strategy, hospital, hospital strategy, hospitals, medicare, pathways, Physicians, referrals

Use the Right Data to Stay Competitive and Optimize Physician Outreach

Whether it proves to be an opportunity or a curse, one thing is certain; today’s healthcare providers are living in interesting times. The US healthcare system is facing a monumental physician shortage due to population growth, an increase in the number of aging Americans, and the retirement of practicing doctors. Additionally, despite increased medical school enrollments over the last half decade, the physician shortfall is projected to grow to 100,000 by the year 2030, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Concurrent to these headaches has been the onslaught of big data—seen by many as a potential elixir to a myriad of problems, and seen by others as merely a new conundrum. 

One thing is certain: hospitals and health systems have never had a more urgent need for accurate, actionable intelligence—especially with regards to fostering and maintaining their physician relations to drive strategic growth.

Tags: Blog, physician liaison, Physician Pathway, physician referral, physician relations, strategic growth, health care, healthcare, physician liaision, white paper

Stratasan’s Physician Patterns to Offer Expanded Physician Referral Insights

By Dave Sellers and Jason Haley

As you may have heard, CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced that The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making Medicare Advantage encounter data, which covers provider identifiers, diagnoses and date and type of service, available for the first time to researchers.

This new effort is part of the CMS and White House patient data collaboration, known as MyHealtheData. CMS also plans to encourage Medicare Advantage programs to use release platforms that meet the capabilities of CMS' Blue Button 2.0 feature, which allows patients to access their own claims data. A patient-centered system requires focus on "data, quality data, cost data, a patient's own data," Vema shared.

How does this update affect Stratasan customers, and particularly, those in Medicare-only states: Alabama, Arkansas, South Dakota, Idaho, and Hawaii?

Tags: physician referral, data analysis, data analytics, healthcare data, medicare, healthcare market data, healthcare data analytics, physician patterns

A Surprising Trend in Patient Care Patterns

By Dave Sellers

We recently tested a theory as to whether or not distance to a physician referral affects how quickly a patient seeks care.* All other factors being equal, we hypothesized that patients would not act as quickly in scheduling a physician visit if that physician is far away. Conversely, if the doctor is close by, we assumed patients would be more likely to book their appointment sooner.

In a previous post, we discussed a similar idea. Are patients more likely to go to the hospital closest to them when in need of care? In that case, tif all other factors are equal, then the answer was yes. But rarely are all other factors equal. Factors such as a hospital's CMI, their community perception, and relative patient satisfaction rates all come into play and can often be more important than proximity.

With this new theory, we were still considering the role of distance, but this time, we wanted to know how it would affect a patient’s responsiveness when needing to schedule time with a referred physician. Our findings surprised us.

Tags: physician referral, physician referral tool, physician relations, healthcare physician strategy, physician outreach strategy, physician retention, physician patterns

Why the Right Referral Software is Necessary to Ensure Goals Are Being Met

By Jackie DeGroat and Sean Conway

Hospitals depend heavily on their referring physicians for patient volume and revenue, which is why developing and maintaining relationships with these physicians is so important. Physician Liaisons are the face, voice, eyes, and ears of this demanding effort. Physicians have a lot of options for referrals and this competition puts even more pressure on physician relations teams to effectively manage provider relationships.

Physician relations teams are responsible for strengthening relationships between physicians and their hospital or health system, with the goal of driving more referrals in-network. There are many components that make up a quality physician relations program, such as a strategic sales plan, effective encounters, and meaningful conversations. But to ensure program goals are being met, physician relations teams must track and measure their initiatives so they can successfully identify opportunities for improvement.

Tags: Physician Pathway, physician referral, physician relations, strategic growth, healthcare data, healthcare marketing, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, marketing, healthcare physician strategy, healthcare data analytics

When patients require specialty care, a primary care physician (PCP), referred to as a “gatekeeper” in the healthcare industry, decides what specialist to refer the patient to. More often than not, patients must wait weeks, sometimes months, before being seen by a specialist. Lengthy wait times create frustration for both PCP’s and patients, worrying the delay will worsen the patient’s condition. 

These lengthy wait times can—and should—also drastically affect your physician referral strategy. Tracking physician-to-physician referrals over too short a time period will give you a limited and likely incomplete view of where the physicians in your area are receiving and sending their patients.

Tags: Blog, physician liaison, physician referral, physician referral tool, physician relations, health care, healthcare, healthcare strategy, healthcare physician strategy, physician outreach strategy, physician patterns

As a Physician Relations Rep, data is the foundation upon which your entire outreach strategy lives or dies. Without a reliable data source, a trustworthy physician referral tool, and a system for tracking and measuring initiatives, your strategy will lack the full depth of understanding needed to meet your annual growth goals.

The goals of a Physician Relations program are to:

• Promote physician engagement in order to grow volume in alignment with the hospital's strategic plan.
• Engage and connect physicians to other physicians and to support key hospital services.
• Unearth any quality, customer service, or access issues physicians may be experiencing.

Tags: Blog, physician liaison, Physician Pathway, physician recruitment, physician referral, physician referral tool, physician relations, strategic growth, strategic planning, health care, health system, healthcare, healthcare strategy, hospital strategy, Physicians, physician patterns