August 2019 Trend Payer Mix

There are two ideas in today’s BIG Ideas podcast based on a visit I made to a practice in the Southeast last week.  First, their data was in the cloud, which often makes it difficult to get the reports you need.  We used Excel’s VLOOKUP feature to combine data from two reports to get the analysis we needed.  One of the projects was to combine tomorrow’s appointment data with accounts receivable data to give the front desk a daily report showing patients with co-payments or balances to collect.  The second idea is pictured with this podcast.  When was the last time you trended your payer mix over time?  This practice has a large payer who does not pay well.  With some contractual changes effective this year, that payer’s percentage of charges dropped considerably.  The next time you are looking for insight about your payers, plot your payer mix over time.  You might be surprised with the insights that are available.