You can’t go wrong with Business Intelligence (BI). But if you are new to the game, knowing which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are more useful to seasoned LTPAC BI Pros, those who were early adopters, may be useful. From start-ups to well-established providers, executives and managers have selected what they consider to be the most important KPIs for their operations. Let’s look.

Frontline Management’s Dean Kiklis, CFO, knows the importance of BI to multi-facility operations. In the beginning, the management team skipped the step of manually creating reports and moved right to BI to meet its aggressive information and scalability requirements for this rapidly growing company. Kiklis says, “By doing it right the first time, we won’t have to face a disruptive economic and operational challenge later on.” Focusing on census, labor and Days Sales Outstanding every Monday with daily updates throughout the week, Frontline Management is able to observe quickly the daily status of these key areas of its operation. For example, since employing primeVIEW, Days Sales Outstanding have dropped by 10 days.

Southeast-based American Healthcare, LLC operates multiple SNFS in Virginia. To remain competitive in a rapidly-evolving, quality-driven reimbursement environment, Robbie Dalton, CFO, reports that controlling costs are critical. Because labor consumes over 65%-75% of total spend, having a firm hand on labor is mission critical. In primeVIEW, the current daily census and labor are automatically tied, affording management a precise view each day of staffing to budget and actual census. This insight gives AHC’s management team opportunities to train Administrators and DONS to more effectively oversee staffing during each shift. Routinely, management uses PCT’s primeVIEW BI dashboard during its weekly census calls and goal setting.

Revenue is also important to AHC and BI has helped its facilities to increase the average daily census of skilled patients by 7% and private pay by 9% over a 12-month period, resulting in revenue increases of $2.6 million and $980,000 respectively.

Jackson, Mississippi-based Health Care Management, Inc. (HCM), reports Greg Seeger, COO, is able to track what is going on at each of its facilities. “We train our team to use primeVIEW as their go-to KPI information source to track census, labor, 5-star, length of stay, clinical quality, receivables, cash flow, and more. It’s a tremendous resource.” Utilizing the dashboard enables the team to identify discharge types and forecast trends. In addition, decision makers from the facility to the corporate office can access the current census levels by total as well as by payer type which enables the facility to forecast their labor and cash projections with ease.

Health Services Management’s Ray Tyler, COO, reports, “One of the biggest advantages to primeVIEW is our ability to view labor from a consolidated corporate, as well as a facility and even department and employee level…not only today, but we can trend and report on past performance as well.” Take overtime for example. PrimeVIEW’s facility, regional, and corporate reporting enables administrators and their department heads to view not only their performance, but they can also observe how they are doing compared to the other facilities within the company. Information in the dashboard helped HSM facilities reduce OT by an average of three percentage points in the nursing department alone.

Because BI generates current and relevant views of critical LTPAC-related and configurable KPIs, executives and managers are able to monitor and effectively manage those KPIs which are critical to achieving strategic goals. Take it from the pros, they literally know what they are doing and the impact their decisions can have on facility performance.

Valuable highlights from 2015 blogs to prepare for 2016

Hard to believe that 2015 is rapidly passing into history. Another year, but what a year it has been for Long Term Post-Acute Providers (LTPAC) providers especially considering the incredible number of claims billers have had to prepare, submit, monitor, and manage. We congratulate billers across the country for what they have been able to accomplish in converting claims to cash in the bank.

The primeCLAIMS team works just as hard to provide an excellent clearinghouse service and also to communicate worthwhile tips and advice to help make billing tasks easier to complete. Looking back on our blogs in 2015, we have covered such topics as ICD-10, processing secondary claims, dealing with claims rejections, principles of successfully Revenue Cycle Management, tips for submitting clean claims, and what to look for in a LTPAC clearinghouse.

Regarding secondary claims, one of our recent blogs, entitled, “What you’re wasting by processing secondary claims manually,” discusses the why’s of automation. The days of manually identifying, preparing, processing, and tracking secondary payer claims is long past. If they haven’t already, we suggest billers retire such costly practices forever and start the new year right.

Managing claims does not have to be complicated we argued in the blog, “Do yourself a favor - Simplify the reimbursement process,” if billers automate the process.

Not all clearinghouses are created equal. In “How well is your claims management solution moving cash flow,” we share some insight into what a clearinghouse, processing LTPAC claims, should offer. Further, because no matter how automated the process may be, claims is still about people. And people and machines need support. In another blog, we ask the question, “Clearinghouse support – is it there when you need it?”

These blogs represent the kind of information billers and their managers should know to be successful not only in 2015, but also in 2016. We look forward to continuing to share our insights and the experiences of your peers in future blogs. After all, it just makes cents.

For your convenience, we’ve grouped the recent blogs by category:

Happy Holidays! May this season bring you and yours joy.

“I believe people are like boats.” With that I’ve started many a seminar and webcast. After a brief pause, I relieve the tension by saying, “They toot the loudest when they’re in a fog.” Ambiguity, tardy information, and just plain situational ignorance can keep many a decision-maker in a fog. However, because of the critical need to know how much and when cash will be flowing into and out of the bank, CFOs need crystal clear visibility. And business Intelligence dispels the haze and sharpens the perception of what is happening. From cash collections and revenue projections to labor and non-labor spend management, operations and finance executives alike can know almost up to the minute how much cash is flowing in and how much is flowing out.

Business Intelligence makes it happen

As we have discussed in previous blogs, Business Intelligence (BI) has become the go-to tool to help managers keep their fingers on their business’s multiple pulses all in one convenient easy-to-view location. For LTPAC providers, this amounts to such Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as census, cash, accounts receivable, labor and non-labor spend, clinical, and other information. Roll up. Drill down. It doesn’t matter. CFOs can glimpse a consolidated view of KPIs important to them and then drill down as deep as they need to track, trend, and act. It’s real time and it’s highly effective. How? BI makes information visible at all levels within the organization simultaneously. And visibility drives accountability

But let’s limit this conversation to cash flow

Turning revenue into cash in the bank

Let’s explore a day-in-the-life-of one of a CFO who uses BI to monitor and hold accountable those responsible for keeping the cash flow steady and predictable. It’s mid-month and after logging into the BI tool (in our customers’ case, primeVIEW), the CFO, we’ll call him, “Craig”, reviews the tiles he’s configured for his home page displaying what to him are the critical KPIs. From there he clicks on the Cash/AR tab to view such information as:

• The current month collections-to-goals performance with 12-month trending
• What’s been collected and deposited each day by payer type for the current month, recent quarter, and year-to-date (Remember. He can view a corporate summary or drill down to a region or facility level.)
• How each facility or region ranks compared to their company peers by payer type
• The status of each facilities aging with payer type drilldown capabilities
• The Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) over a specified period of time
• How revenue is trending by payer typ

Craig notices that the South region is falling short of its MTD collections through the 15^th of the month. He calls Melissa, one of his veteran regional managers, and invites her to open up primeVIEW to discuss these outliers and what her staff can do today to right the regional ship and get it back on course by the next collection benchmark which is the 20^th. Melissa reports that she and her staff have been working with Facilities A and D since noticing the slowdown in collections on the 10^th. She assures Craig that her team is confident that these facilities will reach the month-end harbor very close to their goals

Financial performance

After concluding the call, Craig clicks on the financial tab to check on current revenues generated compared to budgeted projections by region as well as by facility by payer type. He further reviews revenue by occupancy by day, by payer, and by service. Convinced that the company is on track to meet goals and, in a couple of facilities, to exceed goals, Craig then turns his attention to the bad debt allowance status by facility as well as month-to-month trending. He makes a note to himself to address this issue in the next meeting with his corporate AR manager

Conclusion – Visibility is more than just clarity of sight

Because of BI, cash flow visibility is current, communication is specific, and required action is timely. Visibility encourages accountability and fosters real results.