How Practices Win With Live Benchmarking
Wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly see how your practice performed on key benchmarks? What if you could compare your practice to others? And if your practice had the best scores at the end of the quarter, wouldn’t it be nice to get a prize?
Live Benchmarking on athenaNet® provides clients with a quick pulse check of their practice compared to others in their region and specialty on these key metrics:
- Average length of time (in days) between the date of service and the date the charge is entered
- Average number of days it takes to resolve a front-end rejection or back-end denial
- Percentage of open self-pay balances that are older than 90 days
At the end of each quarter, athenahealth looks at an aggregate score of these metrics to determine the top three practices in each region and specialty. Number one winners in each region receive a catered lunch for their practice with an athenahealth guest. And all quarterly winners are eligible to win a grand prize at the User Conference in October.
“athenahealth has allowed Texas Medical and Surgical Associates to concentrate on what matters most to our physicians and staff: patient care, work/life balance, and revenue realization,” said Angela Hill, central business office manager at Texas Medical and Surgical Associates (a number one winner in the Western Region).
“We use Live Benchmarking at every level in our business,” said Trey Schroeder, executive vice president/chief operating officer of Texas Medical and Surgical Associates. “At the highest level, it helps our staff take a proactive approach to billing. It’s also a powerful marketing tool when we recruit new physicians to the practice.”
“I check Live Benchmarking every day to see where we’re falling behind,” said Hill. “It allows me to plan for future work. I can see exactly where we need to focus that day or that week.”
“The data are so up-to-date we can take action the same day that a problem arises with a claim,” said Dr. Mock, president of the practice. “A business mentor once said to me, ‘What gets measured gets done.’ Now our practice has a way to measure and respond immediately to every issue. It helps us manage our business more effectively.”
“Before athenahealth, we had 11 billing office staff,” said Schroeder. “Almost a year later, through attrition and re-assignments, we have four. The removal of seven FTEs is huge. Not only have we cut costs, but athenahealth data allows us to focus on our top-line growth.”
Here are the first place winners by region and specialty from the first quarter of 2007 (January – March). Congratulations to all!
Live Benchmarking First Place Winners: Q1 2007
| Primary Care | Medical Specialties | Surgical Specialties | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | PBS – Collector (MVP) | Partners In Women’s Care LLC | RGH Ophthalmology Associates |
| South | Centrahealth (Altavista Medical Center) | Women’s Specialty Care | Clinical Urology, Inc |
| West | Internal Medicine Associates | Judy C. Dean, MD | Texas Medical & Surgical Associates, PA |
| Midwest | Central Park Pediatrics | Barry J. Fish, MD | David Shepherd, MD |
athenahealth is able to provide this kind of at-a-glance information because of the vast amount of data we collect and process every day on behalf of our clients. We make it easy to quickly evaluate practice performance and target areas for improvement. Clients simply check their athenaNet “dashboard” or homepage to view their overall rank in each category for a real-time and quarterly view. (Some clients admit to being “addicted” to checking their scores!)
“Live Benchmarking lets us know there is very little slipping through the cracks,” said Dr. Mock. “We can always improve, but these data provide a true perspective on our performance.”