What Can Hospital Call Center Practices Reveal About Quality? Written by web_developers on December 22, 2017. Posted in Manage. Frequently Overlooked, a Medical Call Center’s Best Practices Can be One of the Most Accurate Indicators of Its Capabilities and Priorities If you’ve been in the market for an outsourced hospital call center vendor and have been doing online research, you’ve probably seen some Web pages, articles and blogs that talk about hospital call center best practices. If so, it’s likely you didn’t give them much attention, and for good reason: That type of content tends to be geared for people that operate in-house medical call centers rather than those looking to partner with an outbound call center. Instead, hospital call center marketing content more often focuses on its key advantages for customers and its positive performance metrics. There’s certainly nothing wrong about that. Actually, it pretty accurately describes what’s on our medical call center service page! Still, learning about a medical call center’s best practices can provide some remarkably useful insight into what it can really do for you, especially if you have a smaller practice or specialized service line like bariatric surgery. Why? It is because a hospital call center best practices represent the standards a vendor has for all its customers. The challenge is to find this information, which is why I’m sharing two of our own medical call center best practices to give you a better idea of what all this means. Best Practice #1: Create a Seamless Patient Experience A patient should consistently have the highest quality experience, no matter whether they speak to somebody in your office or to somebody in our call center. A tremendous amount of trust is required for a medical practice to let call center agents not only speak for them, but to speak as them when answering calls from patients. This becomes even more precarious when the call center needs access to patient electronic health record (EHR) systems for scheduling appointments. That is why we are routinely refining our solution sets for capturing specific scripting and scheduling protocols. That information is used to create a granular process flow that guides our agents through every step when they are speaking with a patient on the phone. We also ensure that our agents are highly-trained to perform as if they were hired for an in-house call center—which typically means knowing the EMR system the client uses. Nearly all of our clients use a cloud-based or other type of secure system, which enables us to remotely log-in to their system to assist with patient scheduling during calls. Best Practice #2: Optimize Efficiency A hospital call center’s speed and accuracy directly impact patient acquisition and patient retention rates. Every call counts. There’s ample evidence that missed calls translate into lost opportunities to schedule appointments with new and existing patients. It’s great to be ready for call volume spikes by having in-house or outsourced agents at the ready, but that’s not always an economically sound strategy. Instead, it’s better to anticipate when they will happen. We regularly analyze call volume data to identify trends in call volumes, which helps us better coordinate optimal solutions for our clients. But there’s much more to providing seamless and efficient patient experiences than answering calls quickly. When call volumes spike and the pressure is on, the chances to mishandle calls increase—and that’s only if the caller doesn’t get impatient if their calls are not answered in what they consider to be a reasonable amount of time. This is where accuracy becomes crucial, and it is why we get granular with following a client’s specific protocols. For example, if we know certain doctors only treats certain conditions on certain days—and only accept certain insurance—we can more efficiently schedule the patient. Not only is the patient satisfied because his or her needs were met quickly, but the call center agent can more swiftly return to other calls. Together, these two hospital call center best practices support our goals to be more than a hospital answering service and to help our clients enjoy better financial rewards via better patient outcomes. As Sequence Health’s Central/Western Regional Director, Chris Stearns is one of our key healthcare IT experts. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Why In-house Services Are Among the Best Ways to Increase Revenues in Bariatric Medical Offices Written by SQHealth-admin on October 30, 2017. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Manage. Be Careful: Advantages Can Quickly be Outweighed by Risks, Especially If Not Properly Managed With ObesityWeek2017 beginning tomorrow, many of the attending bariatric surgery doctors, nurses and administrators will be visiting the event’s exhibitor hall to discover the latest innovations for improving bariatric practice revenues. As a regular ObesityWeek exhibitor, Sequence Health has regularly used the opportunity to listen to customers—a topic we discussed in a recent blog, “You Can’t Hit a Target Blindfolded: Why We Exhibit at ObesityWeek 2017 (and It’s Not Why You May Think)”. One thing we’ve learned (not mentioned in that blog) is that more and more bariatric clinics are offering in-house services to boost revenue and to reap other rewards. Bariatric practices give up an estimated 80 percent of overall patient spend to hospitals for ancillary services. Much of that can be recovered by expanding in-house services to include cardiac testing, bone density scanning and even endoscopy. Other services such as medi-spa, nutrition and cosmetic procedures like Botox can provide additional sources of revenue for bariatric surgery practices. Although bringing these services in-house can sometimes require significant investment in equipment and training, return on investment (ROI) is often swift. They can yield other advantages that include: • Reduced liability: In-house services give providers additional opportunities to monitor patient progress and identify areas that need to be addressed before they worsen to the point that they exhibit clinically. • Reinforced patient confidence: In-house services and patient engagement tools can validate patients’ concerns about their providers’ expertise, ability to understand their cases to providee optimal care. How to Manage Risk with In-House Bariatric Services Opportunities to improve bariatric surgery revenues and outcomes with in-house services come with additional responsibilities. Practices that bring services in-house have to be even more on top of their game when it comes to tracking patient progress or they risk the worst kind of delays: those caused by inefficient record keeping or miscommunication. When bariatric surgery clinics add in-house services, the chances to makes mistakes grow because they increase the volume of specialists and tests that must be completed in a specific order. Any delay in the process moves downstream and clogs up the works. And thus, it only takes one misread lab test, physician on vacation, or misplaced record to negatively impact a clinic’s entire schedule. In our experience, there are two keys to success in this context: • Knowing exactly what service is needed and what keeps patients on the most efficient path to positive experiences and outcomes. It’s crucial to track every clearance that a patient has completed and what comes next on their care path, even when they are specifically tailored to individual patients. Any necessary alterations should be recorded in real-time so every member of the care team can have immediate visibility into what changed and why. • Keeping patients informed about their progress is equally important. Interactive features like short quizzes complete the feedback loop and inform providers what information has been presented and comprehended by their patient. This gives providers an additional platform for increasing patient awareness about which services to expect next and which optional services may interest them. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
How Improving Patient Satisfaction and CAHPS Scores Can Help for Healthcare Business Written by web_developers on August 28, 2017. Posted in Manage. The adage “Happy customers are good for business” is practically universal whether in healthcare or any other industry. That is because happy customers typically: • Become returning customers • Influence others to become new customers • Reinforce employees to continue providing excellent service In healthcare (where “customers” and “patients” are synonymous), there are many ways to measure and improve patient satisfaction as there are reasons for measuring and improving them. There are two patient satisfaction measurements from HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems) that are noteworthy for their impacts on CMS (Centers Medicare & Medicaid) reimbursements and patient volumes: • CAHPS surveys • HCAHPS star ratings How Do CAHPS Surveys Affect CMS Reimbursements? CAHPS survey scores are an important part of how acute-care hospitals receive VBP (value-based purchasing) reimbursements from CMS. Here’s a simplified overview of how they are connected: • VBP hospitals receive a portion of CMS reimbursements based on their TPS (Total Performance Scores). • A chunk of TPS is determined by the PEC/CC (Patient and Caregiver Centered Experience of Care/Care Coordination domain). • PEC/CC is determined by CAHPS surveys. Put most simply: If your VPB patients experiences are good, you can get higher CMS reimbursements. How Do HCAHPS Star Ratings Affect CMS Patient Volumes? Although CAHPS survey results are published each year, it is done for accountability and not for the public to use as a way to do comparison shopping for hospitals—which is where HCAHPS star ratings enter the picture. HCAHPS has explained its star ratings are intended to: • Enable consumers to more quickly and easily assess the patient experience of care information. • Provide a quick summary of each HCAHPS measure in a format that is increasingly familiar to consumers. Putting it most simply once again: If your VBP patients report good experiences, you’ll probably get more VBP patients. And, if you treat those new patients as well as you treated the earlier ones. Healthcare CRM: An Overlooked Key to Improving CAHPS Survey Scores and HCAHPS Star Ratings There is much more to measuring patient experience than knowing if a sick or injured patient was made better or well. Instead, patient satisfaction scores relates to a host of other factors that focus more on a patient’s experiences—several of which were touched on in the Patient Engagement HIT article, “How Hospitals Can Raise Patient Satisfaction, CAHPS Scores”: • Clear patient-provider communication • Hospital cleanliness and noise levels • Attentiveness and reducing unnecessary discomfort • Discharge and follow-up process Although Patient Engagement HIT shared some valid solutions for how to improve patient experiences in ways that relate to improving CAHPS scores, it missed a crucial one: There was no mention of healthcare CRM solutions such as patient management platforms and medical call centers. No, healthcare CRM solutions cannot control the comfort of the bed or the “bedside manner” of doctors or nurses—nor was it designed to. But they can have tremendous impacts on many factors that are part of the patient experience, especially with administrative functions like intake, discharge, communications and more. Putting it most simply one final time: If you have the tools to provide superior patient experiences, you can get better CMS reimbursements and more CMS patients! [poll id=”15″] Brian Malone Sequence Health’s Contact Center Director. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Working Smarter with Healthcare Workflow Management Technology Written by web_developers on July 28, 2017. Posted in Manage. Improving Hospital Workflow Management Can Increase Both Employee and Patient Satisfaction for Bariatric and Orthopedic Surgery Healthcare workflow management is among the many crucial but occasionally overlooked aspects of how well hospitals, clinics and other medical practices achieve their objectives—whether with regard to financial performance or patient satisfaction. This is particularly true for orthopedic surgery and bariatric surgery centers, which both have unique and complex sets of activities that occur before, during and after a successful procedure. When healthcare workflow isn’t being managed well, procedures and processes in a hospital or medical practice may keep moving forward—at least until a crisis happens that can bring things to a standstill, which lowers quality of care along with patient and employee satisfaction. What often happens next is a post-crisis examination of the problem, which almost always puts the spotlight on healthcare workflow management. But no matter if it’s a specialized surgery center, a general hospital or a family medicine practice, one thing is certain: the larger the organization, the more challenging it is to control workflow in healthcare. For instance, at a small medical practice, a desk clerk about to take a lunch break can ask a nurse to handle the outgoing mail, with no need for special training, authorization or protocols. But as that same small medical practice eventually grows larger and its healthcare workflow becomes more complex, informal and unsophisticated solutions may no longer be an option. Thus enters the need to start examining the advantages of workflow technology in healthcare—which not only can immediately impact workflow efficiency, but also the concomitant benefit of reducing errors and improving patient outcomes as a result. One such healthcare IT solution in this context is a patient management system. A carefully selected and integrated patient management system generally shouldn’t need to replace an entire existing hospital workflow system, but instead, it should enhance and optimize existing workflow, communications and teamwork. This may include a host of daily responsibilities that can quickly cripple an inefficient and unprepared medical practice’s resources that include: • Handling patient inquiries and reminders • Scheduling appointments • Verifying insurance When a viable patient management system is in place to optimize healthcare workflow in an orthopedic or bariatric surgery practice, personnel can better focus on patient care. Reducing Risk with Hospital Workflow Management In as much that a carefully designed hospital workflow management system can improve healthcare operational efficiency, it can also reduce risks that are detrimental to patient outcomes. One example is information transfer, one of several crucial but avoidable errors the National Center for Biochemical Information (NCBI) identified in its report, Organizational Workflow and Its Impact on Work Quality. When hospitals use both paper and electronic records, information can become inefficient, redundant and untrustworthy. Matters can become even more troublesome when information is shared via telephone, text, whiteboards or other verbal orders that are not properly and electronically documented. A prime example of how using a dual information system can create significant problems is with patient readmissions that might have been unnecessary. Inefficient, unmanaged or simply sloppy patient information practices are a key reason why patients often need to be readmitted. However, patient management platform tools that integrate messaging and IVR surveys can streamline transition of care management and other issues before they escalate to a need for readmission. As with virtually any other type of business, the investment to source and install technologies for “invisible” problems like workflow management don’t often immediately demonstrate their ROI because a key function is to minimize risk. However, the inability to have solid healthcare workflow management systems in place will often demonstrate their value after a catastrophe occurs. As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this couldn’t be a more appropriate sentiment for a discussion about healthcare workflow management technologies. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Why a Third of Orthopedic Surgeons and Gynecologists are Penalized for PQRS Reporting Failure…and What They Can Do Written by web_developers on July 13, 2017. Posted in Manage, Orthopedics. How PQRS Solutions Such as Patient Management Software Can Help Reclaim Lost 2% Payment Adjustments for Medicare/Medicaid Reimbursements If your hospital or clinic offers orthopedic surgery or gynecology and participates in Medicare or Medicaid, it’s likely that you already are aware of harsh fact: Failure to properly submit Physician Quality Reporting System (known more simply as PQRS) reports results in a two percent reduction of reimbursements. What you may not know is more than a third of participating orthopedic surgery and gynecology practices take advantage of PQRS reporting, according to a report released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2015 Reporting Experience: Including Trends (2007-2015) Physician Quality Reporting System 2017. What is PQRS Reporting? The PQRS reporting program is the primary means by which CMS is implementing value-based purchasing (VBP), designed to reward quality over quantity when providing compensation for services provided for Medicaid or Medicare patients. Scheduled to sunset in 2018, the PQRS program measures quality via reported medical measures taken by qualifying physicians. Initially created with 74 reportable measures, the number of reportable measures and means by which a physician can report them has increased yearly based on participant feedback. As of 2015, there were 253 measures that could be reported to the system. Beginning in 2015, the PQRS program was also used to determine whether physicians receiving funds would be subject to a payment adjustment: a penalty of two percent. Physicians that did not participate in the program—or failed to report the required number and percentage of measures—were subject to the adjustment. Although the PQRS program is sunsetting in 2018, the focus on VBP is continuing. The PQRS program is being replaced by the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which retains many of the features that were present in PQRS, while also implementing a volume threshold. PQRS Reporting Failure PQRS reporting failure was, by far, the most common reason that physicians were subject to the payment adjustment in 2015. Of those that did report, reporting via electronic health records (EHR) resulted in the fewest percentage of payment adjustments, with only four percent receiving adjustments via that reporting method. This finding by CMS is in line with one of the primary goals of PQRS and MIPS: to increase the use of EHR by physicians to provide higher quality care for patients. According to the CMS report, this type of reporting was uncommon, with the highest percentage of use coming from: • Ophthalmologists (25.4%) • Orthopedic surgeons (11.5%) • Gynecologists (11.3%) While the initial report only covered 2007–2015, some additional statistics were provided for 2017 in the final release of the report. The most important statistic is the percentage of physicians subject to the penalty due to failing to satisfactorily report measures taken, broken down by specialty, which included: • Orthopedic surgeons (32.4%) • Gynecologists (36.8%) Both numbers represent a slight decrease from 2015, but still mean roughly a third of physicians in these specialties are being penalized. PQRS Solutions The fact that PQRS reporting methods correlate significantly with being subject to the penalty suggests it isn’t the standard of care lacking among most physicians being penalized, but rather that administrative abilities are lacking. That is a dilemma that can be solved in part with healthcare management systems and other healthcare IT PQRS solutions. The first step, if not already taken, is clearly to use EHR in daily practice. Use of EHR is both a factor in determining whether a practice or individual should be penalized and is strongly correlated with better quality of care for patients. The next step to improving the quality of reports is improving patient management. Streamlined administrative procedures will result both in better outcomes for patients and in reported measures that are more likely to pass muster. Professional Patient Management Once MIPS becomes the dominant program in 2018, every practice will need to provide quality care, have strong administrative practices, use EHR, and serve large numbers of patients. Although quality of care is entirely the responsibility of the physician, those other factors require professional administrative experience. It is a task that is simply beyond a single physician or administrative assistant. It is a task that requires a highly experienced team of professionals using patient engagement technology, like the Sequence healthcare SaaS (software as a solution). The best way to satisfy MIPs and avoid the penalty is to use the services of a patient management platform. A good patient management platform assists with all administrative functions, including patient acquisition and patient retention. This platform becomes an extension of the administrative staff of the practice, answering questions, verifying insurance, and providing reminders throughout the care of patients. Overall, this service eases the administrative burdens on physicians allowing them to provide higher quality care to a larger pool of patients, both of which will be essential requirements to avoiding the penalty starting in 2018. Good PQRS Reporting Requires Modernizing The conclusion of the CMS report is clear: Familiarity with the PQRS reporting system offers slight benefits, but modernizing offers the best benefits. Physicians that use electronic health records and incorporate outside administrative assistance are vastly more likely to avoid the penalty than those that don’t, because those physicians are providing higher quality care to their patients. And since the costs involved in modernizing are almost always countered by an increased patient base, there is little reason not to modernize. As Sequence Health’s Central/Western Regional Director, Chris Stearns is not only one of our healthcare IT experts, but he also provides specialized focus on Orthopedic Surgery and Women’s Health. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
How to Choose the Best Outsourced Medical Call Center Partner Written by web_developers on July 11, 2017. Posted in Manage. Throughout the past several weeks, we’ve shared a series of blogs as a preface to the publication of our new white paper, Outsourced Medical Call Centers: Defining Success and Selecting the Best Partner. So far, we’ve explored various important subjects, including: • Observations about medical call center statistics • Misunderstood aspects about outsourced medical call centers • Key advantages to using a medical call center This time, we want to touch on some points the white paper makes about how to choose the best medical call center (for which some also use the terms healthcare call center, hospital call center and healthcare contact center). Similar to how there is often no one-size-fits-all for how hospitals provide treatment for patients, there is no universal solution for a how a hospital can use or select a medical call center. This becomes all the more valid when evaluating the pros and cons of in-house vs. outsourced medical call centers, whether for part- or full-time service. For example, when a hospital has a new patient with an uncertain medical condition, it will generally conduct a thorough examination to identify symptoms (problems) so that the proper treatment (solutions) can be prescribed. This is an excellent analogy for hospitals that are evaluating its healthcare call center needs and/or are exploring outsourced medical call center partners. The process for selecting the best outsourced medical call center is not unlike partnering with most other vendors; it requires analysis of several considerations to determine goals and optimize priorities. Define Your “Value” Beyond “Cost” For virtually all hospitals, the cost for an outsourced medical call center service will be the key factor in their decisions. Therefore, having a budget may expedite the process for potential vendors to quickly gauge how well they can satisfy a hospital’s medical call center objectives. However, efforts to define value beyond cost and budgets should not be taken lightly, as they not only help shape a hospital’s goals and expectations for its hospital contact center, but they also provide a framework for examining the quality of its potential vendor relationship. The following is a comprehensive series of crucial considerations. Qualifications • How thoroughly does the vendor describe its service’s capabilities and customer service? • How well regarded is the vendor? Can it provide testimonials, third-party reviews, awards, etc.? • How reliable is the vendor? Does it have a history of proven innovation and experience? • How well does the vendor support its customers? What are its onboarding procedures? Customization and Scalability • Does the vendor’s service meet the hospital’s specific needs and objectives? • Can the service be customized to meet current needs and objectives? • Can the service be reduced or expanded to meet future needs and objectives? HIPAA Compliance and Confidentiality • Can the service demonstrate HIPAA compliance and patient confidentiality across all channels, including e-mail or text messages? • Are its networks and data storage systems secure? Analytics and Metrics • Does the vendor provide analytics and metrics reports—and do they meet the hospital’s needs? • Can the vendor demonstrate how it tracks accuracy and abandonment rates? Identify Your Decision-makers and Delegate Responsibilities Hospitals typically require buy-in from various departments and committees when choosing new vendors and suppliers, and an outsourced medical call center is no exception. Likewise, it is important to know which departments and staff will ensure success after a vendor is selected and the medical call center is activated. Stakeholder and Decision-makers • What departments or staff members should be consulted when determining needs and objectives for the medical call center? • What departments or staff members will need to approve decisions to request proposals or finalize an agreement? Onboarding • Immediately after an outsourced medical call center is selected and a service is activated, what departments or staff members will need to be onboarded? Detail Your Patient Demographics Having a firm grasp on a hospital’s patient demographics may help it identify which potential outsourced medical call center partners can best serve its patients. • Medical/Treatment Specialties: Will the medical call center handle general calls or will it work with specific departments, specialties or centers of excellence? • Geography: What local, state or regional areas does the hospital serve? • Multiculturalism: Are there significant numbers of patients whose first languages are not English? • What percentage speak languages other than English? Plan for Timing Although more logistic matters should be addressed during onboarding after an outsourced medical call center is selected, it may be advantageous to be clear about logistical expectations prior to seeking potential partners. • When would you expect to use your medical call center service? • When would you want to launch your medical call center service? Hopefully this blog series has given a better understanding of medical call centers, and we will continue to publish more blogs that provide our unique perspective on this invaluable service! [poll id=”14″] Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams, including support for a nurse triage service. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
How to Get More CJR and Orthopedic Surgery Patients with the Right Strategies and Tools Written by web_developers on June 23, 2017. Posted in Manage, Orthopedics. There is no shortage of statistics that explain the indisputable fact that CJR and orthopedic surgery patients are increasingly turning to online resources to find the best orthopedic hospitals and doctors. However, although there is no single online strategy that best addresses how to get more orthopedic patients. For that matter, that includes “traditional” marketing strategies—printed advertisements and collateral, for example—when seeking answers about how to get new orthopedic surgery patients. One of the best pieces of advice for how to get more orthopedic surgery patients was mentioned in Becker’s Healthcare article, “8 Tips to Develop Orthopedic & Spine ASC Marketing Strategies With High ROI.” We couldn’t agree more with this sentiment: “Use several different marketing tactics to reach your target audience.” Yes, that may seem to oversimplify the solution for improving orthopedic patient acquisition rates. However, with the countless ways available to promote your orthopedic surgery center and engage with new patients, it is often too easy to arbitrarily choose a set without actually developing an honest to goodness strategy that is both effective and efficient. Rather than treating them as autonomous activities in hopes of just finding new orthopedic patient leads, it is better to corral them into an integrated system explicitly designed to guide them through the so-called “sales funnel.” So, in that context, which is the best way to do this? [poll id=”12″] Components of an Integrated Orthopedic Surgery Patient Acquisition Strategy One of the easiest and free ways to begin the process of developing an integrated orthopedic surgery patient acquisition strategy is to look at Websites for patient management companies like Sequence Health that specialize in orthopedic surgery patient management platforms. For instance, on our Website, our patient management platform is divided into three core categories: • Patient Acquisition • Patient Management • Patient Retention Our Patient Acquisition section is essentially a checklist of tactics your online orthopedic marketing strategy should be using: • Website Design & Development • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Pay Per Click (PPC) and Paid Search • Video Production • Online Education • Electronic Forms • Re-Engagement Campaigns Of course, there are many others not in that list. For example, we recently wrote about a new breed of medical SEO for virtual personal assistants, and of course, constantly evolving trends in social media healthcare marketing are important too. However, there is good reason that the outlined tactics are the perennial featured components of our premium patient management platform, and why it’s valid to suggest they are essential components of any orthopedic patient acquisition strategy. The Importance of Having the Right Tools for Getting More Orthopedic Patients Another point the aforementioned Becker’s article makes is one for which we also completely agree: “Executing a true marketing strategy means building a marketing team and using several different tactics to reach patients.” The emphasis is on “building a marketing team,” which doesn’t need to only use people from your marketing department. Similar to the notion that finding out how to get more orthopedic surgery patients involves exploring multiple tactics, it should also involve multiple resources for building and executing your strategy. Who else in your orthopedic surgery center has a unique or different perspective about what differentiates you from other centers? Who else disseminates (or can disseminate) your messages—perhaps on the phone or with handing out printed materials or on social media? For that matter, this introduces the value of third-party resources, which includes anything from our Sequence patient management platform to outbound healthcare call centers to contract content creators. But the bottom line is there are an abundance of new orthopedic surgery patients that are looking for the best solutions…and there are ways for them to find you and vice versa. The challenge is to do it in a way to optimizes your resources and maximizes your ROI. John Richmond is Sequence Health’s CEO. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Linking Patient Reported Outcomes and MBSAQIP Bariatric Surgery Accreditation Written by web_developers on June 23, 2017. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Manage. With last fall’s release of the new bariatric accreditation standards by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP), a significant numbers of bariatric surgery centers are expected to seek accreditation. This is for good reason: As we mentioned in our blog “Bariatric Surgery Center Accreditation: A Life or Death Decision,” studies from Stanford University show patients receiving bariatric surgery at MBSAQIP-accredited surgery centers had a significantly reduced risk of serious postoperative complications. Risk reductions ranged from nine to 39 percent, and risk of post-surgical mortality was significantly lower in accredited bariatric surgery centers. [poll id=”11″] What the New Accreditation Standards Mean for Your Bariatric Surgery Center As private insurers have become aware of the link between surgery at MBSAQIP-accredited surgery centers and positive patient reported outcomes, they have increasingly been requiring patients they cover to opt for accredited facilities for bariatric procedures. Although Medicare patients are currently not required to choose accredited facilities for bariatric care, it’s more than possible that this will change, given the recent study results. What does this mean for your bariatric surgery center? All indications are that meeting the new MBSAQIP accreditation standards will be highly recommended to keep your surgery center in the forefront of acceptance for both insurers and patients. This in turn means optimizing your staff’s performance and workflow to meet the new standards and to manage and track ongoing patient engagement. Using a Bariatric Patient Management Platform to Meet the New MBSAQIP Accreditation Standards A well-designed bariatric patient management platform that can improve patient retention and results may help you stay on top of the new MBSAQIP accreditation standards. When choosing a bariatric patient management platform, look for the features that make these more stringent standards easier to track and follow. For example, take a look at the bariatric patient intake forms: • Are they easy to customize? • Do they provide the information you need to assess and manage risks regarding each patient from the moment of on-boarding? Properly designed, versatile forms help your bariatric surgery facility meet core accreditation standards regarding patient selection, approved procedures by designation level and bariatric patient clearance management, as well as making the standard requiring data collection manageable by your busy staff. A top-flight patient management platform helps you meet the MBSAQIP standard calling for continuum of care by providing a dedicated medical call center. When you have nurses and other medical personnel available 24/7, you can provide the patient support that you and your patients all want and that helps you meet the accreditation standards. Maintaining patient engagement throughout the entire continuum of care becomes streamlined with the right patient management platform, which makes it easier for your staff to follow up with bariatric patients post-discharge. Because your team is kept aware of changes to each patient’s status in real time, meeting the MBSAQIP requirements regarding critical care support becomes a matter of function with no emergency scrambling. A patient management platform designed to follow the new MBSAQIP standards to mitigate risks and improve patient engagement can make all the difference in your bariatric surgery center’s efforts to meet the new standards. With the data and workflow tools you need in hand, you can focus on enhancing patient care so that the new MBSAQIP standards become a starting place rather than a goal. John Richmond is Sequence Health’s CEO. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Top 5 Healthcare and Medical Call Center Advantages and Benefits Written by web_developers on June 13, 2017. Posted in Manage. In recent weeks, we’ve discussed medical call centers (which are also sometimes called healthcare call centers, hospital call centers and healthcare contact centers) in two distinct ways: • Observations about medical call center statistics • Misunderstood aspects about outsourced medical call centers What has yet to be discussed—or answered—is a simple question: What are the advantages and benefits of medical call centers? Although there is no single reason for why two-thirds of all U.S. hospitals utilize a medical call center (either outsourced or in-house), it can be argued their popularity is related to the many advantages and benefits that yield better experiences for their customers and superb value for the hospitals. In fact, according to a study referenced in our soon-to-be-published white paper, Outsourced Medical Call Centers: Defining Success and Selecting the Best Partner, we demonstrate healthcare call centers improve: • Caller Satisfaction • Department Satisfaction • ROI • Savings to Organization Call Centers Improve Patient Engagement Although it is often uncomfortable to think of healthcare as an “industry” and patients as “customers,” the reality is the transactional nature of healthcare subjects it to many of the same principles that guide the success of traditional retail and commercial businesses—which includes customer service. Although the Internet and smartphones have emerged as new and popular communication channels for providing healthcare customer service, live agent access via the telephone is still among most preferred channels for people that seek assistance. In our white paper, we show why the phone is the most preferred channel compared to: • E-mail • Live Chat • Online Knowledge • “Click to Call” Support Further, as medical call centers continue to adopt other channels (and thus the evolution of the “medical contact center” term), they are also arguably becoming more capable of satisfying patients and increasing value for hospitals. Call Centers Improve Patient Satisfaction However, simply having a phone number for patients to call is not enough to provide satisfactory customer service. On the contrary, telephone communications that are perceived as slow or rely too heavily upon automation can yield negative feelings about a brand. Three-quarters of people that call customer service lines feel it takes too long to reach agents, and more than two-thirds will hang up (“abandonment”) if they cannot access a real person. In that context, providing real, reliable and personalized customer service representatives on the phone can significantly impact perceptions of a “happy customer experience in two ways,” which we explain in our white paper: • Competent Service Rep • Personalization Thus, medical call centers that can provide swift, accurate and personal attention to patients may not only help reduce call abandonment rates, but may also result in better brand perceptions and referrals. Call Centers Improve Patient Management and Follow-up Efficacy The expansion of alternative payment models (e.g., value-based care, bundled payments) demands hospitals to continue to prioritize followups with patients to ensure satisfactory outcomes. Medical call centers that offer outbound calling and support services, such as nurse triage, are perfectly positioned to achieve advanced follow-up objectives, especially since outbound calling is the most common type of outbound call. Our white papers illustrates the rates for which medical call centers are used for: • Post-Discharge Follow-up • Appointment Reminders • Pre-Appointment Admissions • Patient Satisfaction • Patient/Care Navigation Call Centers Deepen Hospital Brand Awareness and Physician Referrals As mentioned earlier, hospitals are unique in that its patients are not “customers” in the traditional sense of retail or commercial businesses, especially with respect to not grooming them to become “repeat customers.” However, some marketing fundamentals are universal, which includes positive word-of-mouth referrals—and why (as mentioned in our white paper) nearly three-quarters of patients have said they would recommend their hospital to friends and family. Call Centers Have High Potential for Optimal Return on Investment (ROI) Continuing on the theme of how medical call centers can expand brand awareness and referrals, they consequently are also thought to have a high potential for optimal return on investment (ROI). Our white paper shows how their estimated 3:1 ROI ratio has been attributed their proven ability to build brand loyalty. [poll id=”8″] Sequence Health has been a leading healthcare call center provider for more than a decade. If you have been thinking about how to choose the best medical call center for your hospital, clinic or other healthcare facility, we are here to help find solutions.
Why and How to Optimize Hospital and Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management After EHR Adoption Written by SQHealth-admin on June 9, 2017. Posted in Manage. One of the many challenges of ensuring your healthcare organization’s longevity and profitability is to regularly adopt new technologies and best practices—which, after such adoptions, often requires an immediate evaluation of the new landscape after to determine what’s next. This is precisely the sentiment expressed in a recent RevCycle Intelligence article, “After EHR Adoption, Revenue Cycle Technology Modernization Begins,” and it is one we hear from our customers more frequently. This is interesting because although we are not an electronic health records vendor, we do offer patient management software as part of our Sequence patient engagement solutions platform, which enables healthcare providers to follow patients through the entire treatment process—and ultimately their optimize healthcare revenue cycle management. What is Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management? As the RevCycle Intelligence article explained, almost all healthcare providers—both hospitals and individual practices—have adopted electronic health record (EHR) software. Now that EHR adoption is in the proverbial rear-view mirror for most, healthcare revenue cycle management is now squarely in their new fields of vision. While many understand what EHR is and does, some might not fully grasp the same for healthcare revenue cycle management. Coincidentally, RevCycle Intelligence answered the question in another and appropriately titled article, “What Is Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management?” And although it’s explanation of what hospital revenue cycle management is was sufficient, it was what it said about what it does (or more specifically, when it happens) that perhaps best illustrates the concept: “Healthcare revenue cycle management begins when a patient makes his or her appointment to seek medical services and ends when all claims and patient payments have been collected. However, the life of a patient’s account is not as straightforward as it seems.” Determining Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Objectives As implied in that explanation, healthcare revenue cycle management is a complex and not necessarily linear process. However, according to RevCycle Intelligence, “78 percent of hospitals still use a manual healthcare supply chain management process.” Hence, it’s natural that healthcare facilities are now turning toward the next piece of the modernization pie: tools for health revenue cycle management. Having learned from the tenuous process of EHR adoption, though, hospitals are looking for solutions that let them avoid repeating the same mistakes. We are finding that they are keen to find healthcare RCM tools that: • Integrate well with existing EHR solutions, ensuring the time and money spent on EHR implementation isn’t wasted. • Provide peace of mind about future functionality, especially as insurers move increasingly to value-based payment models. • Let providers avoid the issues they experienced when integrating EHRs. Adopt Effective Patient and Claims Management Tools A glaring problem with traditional hospital revenue cycle management software solutions is it treats it as a silo function. In some instances, patient reimbursement claims are an afterthought and denial management is a tool that stands on the side of everything else. Silos create manual processes and encourage insufficient forethought in admissions and treatment, which makes it even more difficult to collect from insurers later. This is why it’s important to use patient management platforms that integrate healthcare RCM concerns smoothly within front-end processes. For instance, our medical insurance verification and medical clearance management tools ensure appropriate information is harvested to support clean claims processes and effective denial management. Proactive approaches to revenue matters reduce amounts of denials organizations face to begin with — and the entire process is easy to use and integrate with existing tools. Use Retention Tools to Boost Quality and Value No matter how well healthcare organizations improve their efficiency and billing, it won’t mean much if they are unable to meet more stringent value-based payment requirements. The solution, of course, is to use patient retention tools that provide the future-proofing that providers are looking for in software solutions. Wellness and prevention reminders, medication adherence and discharge-management tools are essential to help providers support patients after treatment and reduce the likelihood of unnecessary readmissions. Patient care coordination solutions let providers synchronize patient contact and services across departments and collaborate with medical treatment teams to support high-quality care — all of which is required by most value-based payment programs. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. Contact us to begin discovering how we can guide your hospital towards positive outcomes and exceptional results.