← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
The Revenue Ripple: How Optimizing Providers Transforms Care and Finance
00:11:41
Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, everyone. This is Brian Zimmerman with Beckers Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning into the Beckers Healthcare podcast. Today we're going to talk about the revenue Ripple, how optimizing providers transform care and finance. Joining me for this discussion is Jodi Hilliker, Senior Director at HealthRise. Jody, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
- [00:20]
B
Thank you. It's my pleasure.
- [00:22]
A
And to get going here, can you just share some details about yourself, the work you're doing now, the work you've done in healthcare, just your experience, so folks can appreciate your perspective as we move through the conversation today?
- [00:33]
B
Sure. I have been with healthcare almost all my life, since I graduated from high school. I think I started there, but over the last three years, I have been focused at healthrise. Prior to that, though, I have worked in the healthcare field doing a lot of EHR work. I started that probably about 13 or 14 years ago, so worked for several organizations, but found my home at healthrise. Really happy to be with such a great group of people.
- [01:04]
A
Wonderful. Appreciate you sharing that and the title of our podcast episode today, and a term you sort of coined here is Revenue Ripple. Can you talk about that idea and walk us through what you mean by that and why you would want to put that at the center of this discussion today?
- [01:23]
B
Sure, no problem at all. So as we started to work with EHRs and with organizations and they're, you know, getting involved with their new ehr, you know, we found that many of the team, many of the providers in particular, struggle after they have gone live and after they're using the different tools. And we also found that a lot of hospitals suffer from, you know, revenue problems. They, they say that now that we've started with the new ehr, we have revenue leakage or we, you know, we're not making the money that we used to and things like that. So we started to put the two things together and we found that if you take providers and you give them every tool that you could possibly give them, sit down next to them, help them work with them, that we find that different things change. Providers are happier, patients, the outcomes are happier. Patients want to come to that particular practice because their doctor has time for them. Efficiency rises. Not only are the providers more efficient, but the whole team is more efficient. As a result of all of those things, your bottom line will grow. It's really important to take a look at the whole picture, not just a small piece of the picture.
- [02:47]
A
Yeah. To your point, if it's good for the patients, it's good for the providers. It's going to be good for that organization, right?
- [02:53]
B
Absolutely.
- [02:55]
A
And then so that's sort of what it looks like at a high level. Let's zoom in a bit. And what it looks like in day to day operations, what does that look like? Provider optimization. And then also if you could, Jody, call out the barriers like what's keeping health systems from making this a reality?
- [03:10]
B
Well, and there are a few, so that's for sure. So the one thing that provider optimization is not, is that we're not adding more administrative tools to the doc. You know, we're not telling them, oh, you have to do this and this and this on top of everything else that you're already doing. So it's not that, but what it is is it's aligning the providers with streamlined workflows. So in order to do that, we bring in a team of professionals that. And you know, there are multiple organizations that do this out there for EHR services, but we bring in our group of people that are very well trained in that EHR and we sit down next to the provider and just basically say to them, you know, what are your pain points? What takes you the longest? Why are you having, you know, such a hard time getting your charts done? Why are you here every night and you miss dinner with your family? And we start to look at the number of clicks, we start to look at their notes, we look at their order sets that they call what they call an order set, where, you know, you can click one button and all the orders go in for you. A lot of providers don't utilize some of those tools because they haven't had the training, nor do they really have the time to sit down and optimize the CHR themselves. So what we do is sit down next to them and basically help them through that. And we find that at the end of all this, as I said, they're much happier, they have much more time and they can spend more time with their patients. And that's what the bottom line is. How can we make sure that patients feel like they're really being taken care of and that doctors are not administrative assistance that are putting things in an ehr. So barriers though that can occur is finding the right team. You have to find a unique group of individuals and you have to work at developing that team because providers get frustrated. And when they're frustrated, it's very hard to teach them sometimes. And it's also hard to make them understand why this is important. When their main concern is their patient, they don't really care about, you know, all of these other administrative duties that they've been assigned. So what, you know, basically what happens is that if you don't have that, that group, they just frustrate them more. If they really don't understand the EHR and really don't understand how they can help the provider, then, you know, it's a, it's a moot point. The other thing is expense. If you don't find the right approach, which is to identify providers that need not just come in and blindly say, oh, we're going to help everybody. You have to base. You have to have the organization work with the organization to find out who you. Let's start from the very bottom, from the team that, that really, really is struggling and work our way up to those superstars that may not need our help. And when we do things like that, you get the best, as I call it, bang for your buck because you're working with the providers that truly need you. A lot of organizations will come in and they' they'll start from the very top. They'll start with their superstars and they'll start to work with them. And they really don't need help. They're already set and ready to roll. You really have to identify who needs you and then work with them. So those are the two barriers that I see. Not having the right team and then making it such an expensive endeavor by not going after the end game the right way. So those are the things that I find are the toughest.
- [06:52]
A
Yeah, yeah. Not having the right team, that not going about it the right way, so it becomes more expensive. And then it's also easy to, to think, even if there's a provider out there that, you know, knows this is important to do to optimize the ehr, it's also one of those things, it's easy to, to see that being the thing on the list that gets pushed down the road.
- [07:12]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [07:13]
A
You know, it's like they've got, they've got a ton on their plate and they might want to do this, but it's like, how, how do you justify doing this when you've got to do XYZ for the patient?
- [07:21]
B
Right, right. And we found that the more that we can provide times that, that fit the provider's schedule, like in our organization, we use a scheduling tool so that the provider can actually name the day and the time that they feel like they have an opportunity to sit down with us and work. And then that way, you know, you're not, you're not trying to budge into their, their schedule that's already too hectic or you're not right, you know, overriding their son's baseball game that they want to make sure that they make this week because they didn't make it last week. So making it convenient for them. Some providers love to optimize on a Sunday afternoon after, you know, family time, and they'll take two, two hours and optimize. Then we make ourselves available for that. And I think that that's important, too, is making it convenient for the provider.
- [08:15]
A
That's a, That's a great call out. Maybe, Maybe. Jody, what we can do now is perhaps anchor the conversation in a specific example of what this looks like when, When. When this gets done. Right. You know what, how can you share a standout example where optimization made a measurable difference for, for an organization or a physician?
- [08:34]
B
We, we worked with a really large health care system and we supported in their doctors. We started from, you know, the bottom, as I said that, you know, the guys that were really, really struggling, guys and gals that were really struggling and worked with them, and these were the ones that their patients were extremely frustrated and were finding other doctors and going elsewhere because they felt like the doctor was an administrative person rather than. Than someone that was really taking care of them. So we found that after we identified our team, identified those Doctors, we spent six months with them, and their documentation accuracy improved by 15%, meaning that they did not have to get notes back from the coding team that said, hey, you didn't document this the right way. And, and so now we need you to document it again in order to get paid by insurance. And, you know, so they got. They had a lot of denials, and we basically, we eliminated their denials, a lot of their denials by, by going through and working with the docs on, on documentation. And they found a 7% increase in their captured revenue in the first six months that we worked with them. And we didn't increase the provider work hours. It was much better for them. They were able to get home. The majority of them were able to see one or two more patients a week because they had that extra time. And it was a ripple effect. So eventually it rolled right down into that revenue ripple. And as I lovingly call it, it worked. And I think that all organizations, if they do it the right way, can see this kind of an effect.
- [10:21]
A
Yeah, added revenue, no added hours. I mean, in six months, that's a pretty good deal. Jody, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. Is there anything we didn't touch on. Or perhaps final thoughts you maybe want to reemphasize for folks out there? Just some closing thoughts for our listeners.
- [10:38]
B
Sure. So the way that I look at it is that provider optimization is no longer a nice to have. You know, we used to hear that a lot in the very beginning, like, oh, it'd be nice if we could optimize our providers. It's not that it's not a nice to have. If you really want your, you know, your patient care to be excellent and you want your providers to be happy and your whole, all, all of your teams to be happy, you have to take the time to optimize your provider. It's a piece of healthcare's financial survival. So I, you know, I really feel that organizations should find the dollars and cents to make this work and find that right team so that you can help your providers. So I am, I'm a big fan of the ripple, the revenue ripple.
- [11:22]
A
Well, Jody, it was excellent to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much.
- [11:25]
B
You bet. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.
- [11:28]
A
You too. Also want to thank our podcast sponsor, HealthRise. You can tune to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page@beckershospitalreview.com.