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Business Analytics: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

By: Robin Ntoh | December 20th, 2019

Business Analytics: The Gift that Keeps on Giving Blog Feature

With the holiday season upon us, people are searching for the right present for friends and family. But what about a specialty practice? Could it benefit from a little holiday cheer?

One item at the top of many healthcare organizations’ wish lists is better insight into business performance. As specialty practices aim to prevent revenue leakage, meet rising consumer expectations and effectively participate in value-based care arrangements, it can be difficult to know where it’s best to focus time and resources. Fortunately, robust business analytics is the perfect gift to guide strategic decision-making this holiday season, and one that keeps on giving throughout the year.

Here are three areas where strong analytics can make a difference in a specialty practice:

Elevating staff performance.

Data pulled from a practice management system can show how much time revenue management team members take to post charges and get bills out the door. It can also display work queue velocity and other information that highlights overall staff performance. When this data is shared via a user-friendly dashboard, practice leaders can see at-a-glance how efficient specific staff members are as compared to their peers. This data may indicate areas of success as well as opportunities for additional training or changes to workflow.

Streamlining operation workflows. 

Data analytics can also reveal areas of inefficiency, which if addressed could smooth operations and drive revenue. For example, practice management data can highlight recurring billing delays. By tweaking workflows, organizations are able to dismantle some of these roadblocks and thereby release locked up cashflow. Providers can also use data to optimize scheduling, leveraging information about peak visit times, physician availability, typical appointment length and other patterns to create the ideal balance of volume, convenience and flexibility. The right data may also uncover unnecessary administrative burdens that are weighing down operations. With this insight, practices can redesign processes to ensure providers work at the top of their licenses.

Pinpointing new and existing revenue opportunities

Oftentimes, organizations lose revenue without even realizing it. By reviewing comprehensive data, organizations can quickly see areas where their actual performance is not living up to expectations. Perhaps they are falling short on posting or seeing a spike in certain types of denials. Uncovering root causes allows a practice to fix problem issues and prevent their recurrence. Data can also highlight opportunities to capture market share. Looking at information around popular and profitable procedures can suggest prime areas to augment or diversify a practice’s offerings. Analytics can also inform marketing and promotion efforts to achieve the biggest return on investment.

Robust, meaningful and accessible data can be a true gift for practices. When leaders are able to view real-time information in easy-to-read dashboards, they can get a complete picture of practice performance, addressing issues and laying the foundation for a strong and lucrative future.