Mine Clinical Data
Are you frustrated with your EHR? Would it be nice if all providers entered data consistently? If many practice management reports are frustrating, most clinical reports are even more difficult to work with. I am doing more clinical data mining projects than ever. ...
Conversation with Dave Gans
How is your practice responding to COVID-19? How could your competitors be responding to COVID-19? Today’s BIG Idea podcast is an MGMA Executive Session Podcast with my friend Dave Gans. Our conversation starts with how practices are responding to COVID-19 and then...
Trend and Reduce Denials
Are you sure your practice is being paid what you should be paid? How sure? One way to analyze whether you are being paid correctly and completely is to analyze and trend your denial codes. Claim Adjustment Reason Codes (CARCs) and Remittance Advice Remark Codes...
Unfilled Appointment Slots
How much revenue is your practice missing without noticing it? Practices often focus on no shows, but at least there is a chance the patient will come. What about patient appointment slots that are never filled in the first place? Many practice management systems...
Valuing Patients and Marketing Efforts
When was the last time you really impressed a physician with a report? I'm betting it was not a canned report... What if you could show your physicians what a patient is worth to your practice's marketing efforts? Today's BIG Ideas podcast talks about a project for a...
Power Pivot
Has the pandemic sent you looking for better data about your practice? Are you looking for more data, more sources of data, or more correlated data? Power Pivot may be just what you are looking for. Today's BIG Idea podcast is a brief introduction to Excel's Power...
Better AR Data
Has the pandemic left you low on cash? This BIG Idea was a request from a practice in the Pacific Northwest who needed better and more detailed accounts receivable information than their canned reports could provide. The more data you have around accounts receivable...
Tomorrow Appointments
Today's BIG Idea is to data mine your appointments scheduled for tomorrow and to use that data to manage your front desk staffing. If you can see how many appointments are coming in by appointment start time and then create some logic to know how long those patients...
Retain Patients from Retiring Providers
Today's BIG Idea is a project I discussed with a group in the Rocky Mountains today and is based on a project I have been working on for a group on the East Coast. In both cases, a provider was retiring from the practice. Regular businesses consider and often...
Adjustments Equals Charges
Today’s BIG Ideas podcast is from a project I built a couple of weeks ago. A practice in the Midwest wanted to track denials by finding procedure codes where the adjustments on the procedure equaled the charge amount. With the exception of a few things like charges...
Roomed On Time
Today's BIG Idea is a project I built for a practice last week to track the number of patients who are roomed on time. Listen to the podcast for more details, but if you have appointment data (start time, provider, location, etc.) and can add the time the patient...
Front Desk Collections
Happy 2021! Here's hoping you have a much better year. Today's BIG Idea is to collect more at the front desk this year. Listen to today's podcast for ideas on how to better track collections at the front desk. I will discuss some data you need to store, additional...
Patient Mix
Today's BIG idea is based on a project I'm working on for a group in the southeast. You are familiar with payer mixes. Have you ever created a patient mix? This practice gathered some basic demographic information about their patients and then added fields to track...
2018 Provider Utilization File
I apologize for the delay sending out podcasts. Covid slowed me down. The good news is that CMS finally released the 2018 Provider Utilization File just yesterday. If you aren't familiar with the Provider Utilization File, the podcast suggests 3 ways to use the...
November 2020 Analyze Contracts
Today's BIG Idea is from a practice that is considering merging with similar practices to form a large, specialty group. As part of their analysis of the merger we have pulled data on all of their major contracts to assess the impact of the merger on their bottom...
November 2020 Manage Pre Auths
Today's BIG Idea relates to two projects I am working on this week. The first project is for a practice with an in-house pharmacy. The drugs are expensive and the pre-authorization process is extensive, but the software leaves a lot to be desired. I will briefly...
October 2020 Appointment Utilization
This BIG Idea is particularly important in today's pandemic environment, especially if you are limiting patient appointments. Many practice management systems make it hard to track appointment utilization, or the percentage of available template slots (the...
October 2020 Change Metrics Based on Covid
Today's BIG Ideas podcast is based on my presentation this week at MGMA's Virtual Annual Conference. A recent MGMA Stat poll indicated that one-third of practices are changing their key performance indicators or metrics due to COVID-19. If you aren't familiar with...
October 2020 Claim Scrubber
If you are wishing cash flow would pick up faster during the pandemic, this BIG Idea podcast might help. You may be familiar with claim scrubbers, tools that review claims for common errors before submitting the claim. If you have access to your practice management...
September 2020 2021 wRVU Changes and Physician Compensation
Is your practice's physician compensation plan in some way dependent on work RVUs? Listen to today's BIG Ideas podcast for ideas on how to forecast and adjust for upcoming changes in 2021 wRVU calculations. For a practice I helped at the end of last week, the...