Did you know health systems or hospitals lose up to 60% of patients to another hospital due to inefficient referral process?
What Hospitals Need To Do To Increase Referral Profitability?
Today most of the healthcare systems are functioning in silos due to disparate systems that do not communicate with one another effectively. It is a well-understood fact that the current referral process makes it difficult for patients to get the care they need. None of the health systems can afford to lose more than half of their revenue to referral leakage effects. However, with the advent of new healthcare technology, it is possible to improve overall efficiency, increase referral profitability and improve patient outcomes.
Health systems are now pursuing strategies to improve patient flow such as orchestrating the entire referral process. Rethinking patient referral workflow in hospitals is vital to improve patient experience, make operations more effective and increase referral profitability. They are thinking beyond departmental boundaries about the entire journey of the patient in the process, how patient appointments are made and how their clinical information are fetched/ tracked and how the referral loop is closed. It is highly important that they seal referral leakage, reduce no-show rates to increase referral profitability.
Three Major Reasons For Referral Leakages
Poor patient-provider communication:
Effective communication between patient-provider has the potential to enhance patient satisfaction and health outcomes of the patient. On the other hand, poor communication can hamper the relationship and lead to referral leakage.
Lack of Provider-to-Provider Communication:
All providers involved in patient care need to have a better and convenient medium of communication. Referrals through multiple channels can actually lead to poor referral management and cause referral leakage. Providers need to have a secure HIPAA compliant solution.
Complex Workflow:
It is important for the workflow to be smooth and keep track of patients’ right from the time a patient is referred until the referral loop closure.
The one-key solution to increase referral profitability and address all of the above would be to implement an end-to-end referral management solution. Analyzing the referral patterns can help yield more revenue opportunities and increase referral profitability. Understanding patient behavior, communication among physicians, practices, and locations is key in the referral process. Overall, effectively tracking the network should help patients and providers with informed decisions.
Two main attributes that health systems need to look for while choosing a referral solution are
Interoperability for new technology in unexpected ways in integrating with any EMR/EHR
Sustainable design and product features, which can solve the current challenges in the referral process
Product features that health systems need to look for while choosing a referral solution are
Multi-channel Referral Consolidation:
Referrals from various sources need to be brought into a single queue for an easy process of referrals and this can help in avoiding referrals getting missed in the process.
Automated Insurance Pre-authorization:
This process is an arduous time-consuming task and can affect the clinical outcomes of patients, doctors, and specialists. An automated insurance pre-auth can save time and help in processing more referrals.
Finding the right receiving provider within your network:
Many health systems/ large hospitals are joint ventures or acquisitions. Finding the right specialist within the network may be a challenge as PCPs and specialists may not be aware of all the specialists within the network. A feature like this can help find the right provider.
Dashboard and Referral Analytics:
It is difficult to track all referrals that flow in and out of the network. A referral analytics dashboard will help in understanding the referral patterns, a number of referrals and many more data for informed decision making.
Patient Coordination Framework:
A patient-centered care coordination is required for better clinical outcomes and to reduce no-show rates. This feature will help patients, receiving providers and the referring providers are updated through the process until the referral loop closure.
With the above features, hospitals/health systems can expect the below benefits
- Reduced patient no-show rates
- Reduced referral leakage
- Increased operational efficiency
- Patient satisfaction
- Increased revenue
- Streamlined referral life cycle management
And at the same time gain better insight into the business using analytics such as the metrics dashboard, referral volume, referral patterns leakage rate, wait times, etc.
HealthViewX Referral Management is the right choice for large hospitals and health systems to keep track of patient referrals throughout the referral life cycle. Schedule a demo with us to understand the Solution features and benefits in detail and increase referral profitability. Our solution experts will be happy to guide you through our HealthViewX HIPAA compliant Patient Referral Management solution.
