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expire in three to seven days, and then eight to 14 days, and so on. We’ve actually taken our CMNs down 66 percent today, and that is directly thanks to analytics.
“Before analytics we were unable to see what was getting ready to expire without having to pull three and four reports, and merge them together.” She continues. “And it was just not efficient for our team to do. Moreover, after the reports had been merged together and altered so many times, you had to wonder if they were even accurate.”
WeCare derives its revenues from a pretty brand range of sources. Roughly 30 percent of its funding comes from Medicare, and the rest
is diversified over sources, including commer- cial payers and Medicaid. So it takes work to ensure WeCare receives a steady flow of income. Moreover, like a lot of providers, WeCare has suffered the proverbial third week of the month lull that undermines that effort.
“I think every DME goes through this: you push information through the first two weeks of the month,” Brown explains. And then you taper off during week three. So then, Wednesday through Friday of the final week it’s ‘push-push- push-push-push.’ You’re pushing orders to the confirmation team so that they can release those claims to bill.”
That lag and then explosion of last-minute activity is not exactly an ideal situation for a provider trying to maintain steady cash flow.
“We were able to go into analytics and identify what our average revenue build was per location, and then, in turn, do spot checks throughout the day and throughout the week to make sure that we are staying on target to keep a steady flow of revenue,” Brown says. “If you don’t have steady revenue, it’s very difficult to run a successful budget, pay payroll, and keep expenses under control.”
Resupply is another important element of WeCare’s business that is benefitting from analytics, according to Brown.
“We take great pride in our resupply program,” she says. “It’s something that we feel we offer to the communities that we’re located in that the other DMEs don’t. We’ve been monitoring the average allowed amount per sales order that’s been created in the system, and I’m able with analytics to go in and look at an average allowed amount per sales order by employee.”
WeCare uses a blend of Brightree Connect to automate its patient outreach for resupply, as well as four callers to handle live calls as part of its resupply efforts.
“I can go in and target those employees and work with them to see if they are educating the patients like they need to,” Brown says. “You know, talking about the importance of changing
their filters every month and getting their scripted pressures because they’ve not actually changed their cushion. So we’ve seen that go from $96 up to $105 per sales order created by an employee.”
Another element of its business that WeCare uses analytics to monitor, assess and address is the outstanding unbilled business. Analytics help the provider understand how much and why, and then determine ways to decrease it.
“Because it’s the first thing that you see in terms of money value when you click on the Brightree summary page, we started taking a look at what are we leaving on the table each month,” Brown explains adding there was a gap between new business and delivered log of business that was getting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. WeCare understood some of the reasons why that was happening, but not all of them.
“That’s because we don’t bill or confirm a sales order to release until we have all documenta- tion that’s needed to complete that file,” she says. “With some insurances, you can bill, but
in the event you get an audit, you need to have the documentation. Well, we don’t chance that; we make sure that we have all documentation prior to letting that claim go out the door. So,
we started monitoring that month after month and by diving into each location easily within analytics to examine, well, let’s hypothetically say our Ashland has $100,000 sitting outstanding. What kind of impacts can we make?
“You can drill into that in analytics to see what work is in progress,” Brown continues. “Who are the majority of the sales orders assigned to? So then our response can be more targeted to the employee that has a higher volume of sales orders sitting, instead of the old, ‘well let’s just work on Ashland as a whole’ and throwing darts at a moving dartboard.”
Applications of analytics such as this help WeCare ensure it closes out at the end of
the month that whatever business we have obtained for that month; that it collects all of
the documentation required; and that it bills
that business before the close of the month. The ultimate goal is to make business turn on a dime.
“I think at the end of the day, our goal is to get that process tightened up so that everything is
done within a three-day turnaround,” Brown says.
KNOWING MORE ABOUT YOUR MARKET
Analytics isn’t just about understanding your own business but understanding the market and how your business stacks up against other players.
For example, as new providers and inves-
tors look at the attractive demographics
of post-acute healthcare, competition is increasing almost daily in the HME environment, PlayMaker’s Dillon notes.
“Whether you’ve been in business for 20
years and have some sort of that word-of-mouth customer base built up, or you’re in day two from just getting your licensure and being able to offer different products or therapies, I think it’s important to know who’s doing what and who’s not doing what in order to identify and develop your niche.”
So PlayMaker Health aims to provide analytic tools that help providers see how they fit into the competitive landscape, and how well they are reaching the market.
“Even where you don’t have a relationship established, we can absolutely show you some of those, for lack of a better term, ‘performances’ in your area: who’s referring, how often, and,
if you’re not getting any other referrals, where those referrals are going,” Dillon explains. “And again, you can spin that off multiple times. We can show you things like payer mix, and what percentage of a physician’s practice is coming against different payer sources and so on.”
The result is that the provider is using analytics not to optimize its operational performance, but its sales and market performance. Analytics are being used to grow the business.
“There’s a component of our platform that helps you identify and evaluate, really, those existing relationships,” Dillon explains. “For example, you may have a relationship with a physician, and he or she tells you, ‘Hey, you’re getting 100 percent of my business.’ Well, when you use our data, you find out that they might be only sending you 50 percent or 75 percent of referrals; there’s business being left on the table.
“Then there’s what I consider the ‘green space,’” he continues. “Those are relation- ships that you don’t have, and a lot of times,
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Management Solutions | Technology | Products
“You want to make sure you’re always able to track and monitor each detail of your business and as deep as you want to go or as high as you want to go.”
— Fadi Haddad, Brightree LLC