Connections

01th Jul
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Three Steps to Immediately Improve Patient Referral Management

Here are three tactical ways primary care practices can improve the patient referral processes and see immediate improvements in patient followthrough with referral appointments.

1. Dedicate staff members to actively manage referrals

Designate members of the front desk or administrative team as the practice’s referral coordinators. The referral coordinators orchestrate the referral process and track the progress and outcomes of each patient referral. Referral coordinators should be good communicators who work well with patients and providers, both inside and outside the practice. Referral coordinators should also be highly organized, familiar with the practice’s information systems and time expectations for various referrals, and be willing to take persistent action to facilitate and track referrals.

2. Create scalable, repeatable referral workflows to ensure the referral loop gets closed

To the greatest extent possible, the practice should create standardized referral workflows that are scalable, repeatable, and transparent. Too often, referrals are handled ad hoc by multiple members of the staff, using faxes and phone calls to transit patient information and track referrals. That system is inefficient and opaque—patients are lost and potentially catastrophic outcomes can ensue. Rather, all referrals should be routed through the referral coordinators so that the referrals can be tracked. Ideally, the referral coordinators would utilized an automated, end to end referral management solution like Fibroblast, which guides patient referrals to the most appropriate network provider, ensures the timely two-way flow of information between providers needed to complete the referral process, and tracks referrals in real time. After all, the referral doesn’t actually happen until the patient receives the care or services the patient needs; the referral loop isn’t closed until the referring provider receives information back from the consulting provider about the patient’s care.

3. Engage the patient with referral-related messages

The most important and most overlooked stakeholder in the entire referral process is the patient. The most common reasons why patients do not follow up on referrals for care are confusion by the process and frustration over scheduling an appointment. What is more, recent research indicates that 72% of patients would like to communicate with their medical providers over email and 63% would like to communicate by text message. The practice should adopt an automated patient messaging application, like the one offered by Fibroblast. By sending patients automated, preference-sensitive messages about their referrals, the practice keeps patients informed and engaged, greatly increasing appointment attendance rates and promoting better patient outcomes.

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19th Jan
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Missed Connections

By Miranda Crowell

While social media may have all but erased the missed connections portion of the newspaper, the idea still exists. Two people meet and are unfortunately unable to communicate potentially useful information to each other. Healthcare providers are far too familiar with missed connections. But this isn’t the sappy kind you see in the movies. It’s the worst type of missed connection – the kind where despite each party involved doing his or her job diligently and correctly, a bad experience and a negative health outcome for the patient still ruin the climax of the story.

This is precisely the type of missed connection recently experienced by one gastroenterologist, Dr. Raye (as we will call him). Dr. Raye met with a 70-year-old patient with normal mental status named Ellen (as we will call her) and delivered to her a diagnosis of cancer. After some brief in-office education, Ellen was sent home with explicit directions to obtain follow-up tests and receive further care from several recommended specialists. Time passed. But when Ellen returned for her next appointment with Dr. Raye, Ellen was completely stunned by Dr. Raye’s request as to the whereabouts of her lab results. It was as if she hadn’t been present for the initial diagnosis and the discussion of plans for her future treatment and care. . .

This type of missed connection is not only predictable; it’s preventable. This isn’t a personal failure on the part of the doctor, the patient, or her family. It’s a systemic problem. While the industry may be loosening its reliance on old payment models in order to take advantage of the much-anticipated benefits promulgated under the Affordable Care Act, a fee-for-value system does not do enough to unbreak the patient referral process. A scribbled prescription pad or a computer printout instructing a patient to receive further care depends on the patient to proactively and diligently follow up for his or her treatment and care to proceed as was prescribed. This heavy reliance on patient self-management, however, allows some patients to all too easily fall through the cracks of the healthcare system.

There is however a solution to this problem and tools to help. Electronic referral systems are one such tool. They come with many benefits including analytic capabilities and perhaps most importantly an opening of the line of communication among providers, care coordinators, and patients, thus connecting the dots in patients’ care. An open line of communication and closed information sharing loop among Ellen, Dr. Raye, and her oncology specialists could have led to a better experience and improved health outcome for Ellen. Fibroblast is a referral management tool committed to promoting better patient outcomes, improving patient health, and ensuring that patients like Ellen never fall through the cracks of the healthcare system.

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23th Jul
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Patient Leakage: Acknowledging the Rusty Pipes

By Miranda Crowell

 

If you’re involved in any aspect of a patient referral, patient leakage is a problem which cannot be ignored. Like water dripping from a pipe, patient leakage leads to lost revenue and increased costs. And if money is not enough to perk your ears, patient leakage can also lead to negative clinical outcomes and a poor patient experience.

Patient leakage occurs when a patient’s business leaks out of the system because either (i) the patient failed to make or attend a follow-up/referral visit or (ii) the patient took his or her business to a competitor. While not an exhaustive list, below are four key reasons why patient leakage happens in the first place.

Old Habits Die Hard: Providers and Staff Revert to Past Trends

Like any business, patient referrals can be all about who ya know. When doctors create a relationship and a belief that the other performs satisfactory work, a tendency to refer to that person may form. It can be difficult for new players to enter into this system of trust, even when the new provider is in-network. Without taking advantage of ways to put a medical service in plain sight for other doctors to see, referring doctors and staff may not have knowledge of all the options. Lastly, some staff may have a “We have always done it this way” attitude, but it is this approach that could be costing your business money.

Patient’s Beliefs

Even if your business has made a strong effort to refer in-network, patient leakage can still occur when the patient subjectively believes that one provider outperforms another. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, so businesses should use this tool to their advantage by capitalizing on in-network referrals when they can and educating patients on the benefits of staying in-network when they cannot. Poor past experiences also motivate a patient to go outside of a network, so businesses should not shy away from the tough conversations.

Convenience

Sometimes a patient’s lack of follow-up or missed referral has a simple root cause: lack of convenience. A patient may fail to follow-up because (i) the consulting or referred-to doctor took too long to respond to the patient, (ii) the doctor’s office is too far or other access to care issues exist, or (iii) the consulting doctor is not accepting patients (among others). Recently, price has become a part of the convenience discussion. As discussed in a previous blog post, retail healthcare offices are far superior than traditional providers when it comes to price transparency. But even if your office is not ready to post the price for routine services on your website, cost is becoming increasingly important to the consumer. Providing cost transparency for services, such as colonoscopies, mammograms, X-rays, and vaccinations, may poise your business to reduce patient leakage.

A Broken Referral System – Still Largely a Paper-Based System

If the state of the art referral is made on a one-fourth sized sheet of paper or a computer printout, it is no surprise that patient leakage exists. A patient will feel little commitment to follow through with instructions for future action. Conversely, appointments for follow-ups made on-site are an obligation; the appointment is already scheduled into the patient’s life. Moreover, most physicians do not share an IT platform, so there is little way to follow the patient through their course of treatment. This could lead to potential poor outcomes, medical malpractice risks, and poor patient experiences. (You can read more about medical malpractice risks involved in a patient referral here.)
In short, patient leakage is a preventable problem. Unless the rusty pipes are acknowledged, patient leakage could be bleeding your business of downstream revenue. With a few minor changes and some clever tools, such as Fibroblast’s referral platform, the problem of patient leakage can be a problem no more.

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03th Jun
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Clinically Integrated But Not Necessarily Aligned: Who’s to blame for patient leakage in Clinically Integrated Networks?

Patients are falling through cracks in our healthcare system, leading to poor patient outcomes and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue opportunities per healthcare system. This problem is intensified by declining fee for service reimbursements and the financial risks of value-base payment models.

Why does out-of-network patient leakage occur, who is to blame, and what can be done about it?

On June 24 at 12 PM CDT, Fibroblast, in collaboration with Matter and EDLoop, is hosting a one hour webinar discussion of how and why out-of-network patient leakage occurs in a Clinically Integrated Network from the perspectives of an independent private practicing physician, an employed physician, and former ACO executive.

Click on the flier below or this link to register.

Fibroblast Webinar

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21th May
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Presence Health and Fibroblast Partner to Improve Quality, Control Costs, and Improve Care Coordination for Millions of Illinois Patients

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chicago, IL.  One of the ways leading health systems improve quality, control costs and improve care coordination is by leveraging emerging technology. Presence Health and Fibroblast jointly announce a new partnership for innovative referral management technology that will reduce fragmentation and streamline navigation as patients move between providers and services while receiving medical care. The contract was inked in March 2015.

“Adoption of this technology will be a huge benefit to the patients and enrollees in the Presence Health network, and to physicians as well. Presence is transforming its own infrastructure at startup speed, which is both rare and refreshing to see for a system of this size and complexity,” said Scott Vold, CEO and co-founder of Fibroblast.

The adoption of this new technology aligns with Presence Health’s Vision to lead the transformation of health care. The partnership with Fibroblast is mutually beneficial as it allows Presence to leverage technology in a new way and Fibroblast to catalyze the development of this tool across one of the largest health systems in Illinois.

“Presence Health is committed to giving patients our best by continuously improving how we do things, which in this case, means moving to a physician referral process that is more responsive and able to meet the needs of our physicians and our consumers. After serious study, we believe Fibroblast’s platform of tools addresses what has been lacking in referral management processes across the country, and we’re thrilled to be an early adopter of this exciting technology,” said Amy Dirks Stevens, President, Presence Health Partners, Presence Health’s clinically-integrated accountable care organization.

The secure, HIPAA compliant software is flexible and easy to deploy. Because Fibroblast is web-based, Presence Health’s independent physicians can use the software with their existing internet connections and computer or mobile devices. For Presence Health’s employed physicians, Fibroblast can integrate with the electronic health record and practice management system.

Millions of times each year, patients have medical needs that require expertise from different providers in different places. In order to involve others in diagnosis and treatment of illness, physicians “refer” patients to other physicians or services (from primary care to specialist, from specialist to diagnostic procedure, from emergency room to primary care, to name just a few examples). By definition, the referral process contains a bewildering number of transitions and handoffs.

Despite its complexity, too often the management of referrals still depends on time-consuming and error-prone manual/paper processes. Many office staff use one-way communication tools such as FAX machines to send and receive referrals. Doctors search for each other by phone or pager. Records and notes from the receiver to the sender have to manually route back to the patient’s chart. Tools to comprehensively understand and visualize key clinical data elements in real time are limited. Despite best efforts, administrative inefficiencies remain commonplace, wasting time, complicating the patient’s experience, fragmenting care, increasing medical system costs, and producing limited business intelligence.

Efficient, effective referral management is therefore a key linchpin in improving care and lowering costs as the market platform for health care delivery moves providers from volume to value based reimbursement structures.

Fibroblast automates and improves the physician referral process from beginning to end and everywhere in between, resulting in:

  • Increased patient satisfaction, including peace of mind that comes from knowing referrals are made with the patient’s personal insurance and network in mind, preventing financial harm to families that can accompany out-of-network referrals.
  • Increased physician and staff satisfaction by mapping referrals in real-time and closing the referral loop.
  • Improved patient outcomes through better access to care and care results.
  • Concentrated and focused care inside accountable care organizations, and reduced leakage from networks that are financially rewarded or penalized based on patient outcomes (rather than diffusing and fragmenting care by ad hoc referrals outside those accountability safeguards).
  • Assurance that referrals flow to high quality, low cost providers.
  • Increased drive toward top-line revenues.

About Fibroblast

Fibroblast is a Chicago-based health technology company on a mission to fix the broken referral process to ensure that no patient falls through a crack in the healthcare system and misses out on potentially lifesaving care. Fibroblast automates the physician referral process and reduces patient leakage from provider networks, increasing revenue and mapping referral patterns in real-time. In the fee-for-service context, Fibroblast closes the referral loop to drive top-line revenues, increase patient satisfaction, and improve patient outcomes through better access to care. In the fee-for-value context, Fibroblast’s automated referral platform reduces risk by driving referrals to the highest quality, lowest cost providers, improving profitability, patient outcomes, and population health.  Fibroblast is venture-funded, an alum of Excelerate Labs/TechStars and 1871, and a founding member of Matter, a community of healthcare entrepreneurs and industry leaders working together in a shared space to individually and collectively fuel the future of healthcare innovation.

About Presence Health

Presence Health is the largest Catholic health system based in Illinois, created in November 2011 through the merger of Provena Health and Resurrection Health Care. With more than 150 sites of care, including 12 hospitals, Presence Health has more than 20,000 employees, 4,000 medical professionals and a revenue base of $2.7 billion.

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28th Apr
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Health-software startup Fibroblast gets a leg up

Fibroblast is in the news! Check out this article by John Pletz of Crain’s Chicago Business.

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01th Apr
Posted By
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HELPING PATIENTS MAKE CONNECTIONS HELPS EVERYONE

By Dr. Andrew Albert, Chief Medical Officer and Cofounder of Fibroblast

Here’s what frustrates me about healthcare. As doctors, we try to give our patients the best possible care. They come to us with their ailments, aches, and concerns, and they come to us for routine check-ups that sometimes result in less than routine discoveries. When they’re in the office, we help our patients as best we can, and we recommend further treatments or consultations, if necessary. But once patients leave our office, they’re on their own.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I wish I could do more.  That’s why I’m happy to see a change in the way doctors are interacting with patients, and that making connections for them between ourselves and other physicians has become much easier.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

For example, an increasing number of doctors have started communicating with patients via social media and text messaging. In fact, 67% of doctors say they use a social media platform for professional reasons, according to a survey of 4,000 physicians by QuantiaMD.

Patients certainly appreciate this accessibility: A 2012 PwC Health Research Institute report found that 61% of patients trust information posted by physicians on social media, and 41% of patients would be willing to share information with doctors on social media.

KEEPING PATIENTS IN NETWORK

Taking things a step further, we as physicians now have the power to make even stronger connections between our patients and care providers, and between ourselves and other doctors in our own networks.

I’m talking about new tools like Fibroblast, which makes scheduling appointments as easy as a couple of clicks. If we need to refer a patient to another doctor, we don’t have to stop at a suggestion, or a name and contact information. We can set up the appointment before the patient walks out the door.

We can direct our patients to another health care provider in our own network, thus preventing patient leakage and lost revenue. Since so much of our record-keeping has moved online (55% of U.S. doctors have embraced some type of electronic health record system, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics), patient information can be shared — not duplicated — and the patient can get better care.

BUILDING BETTER RELATIONSHIPS

Doing all we can to assist our patients with scheduling follow-up appointments ensures that they will see someone we trust, and that they’ll do so soon.  Facilitating this connection helps all involved, and helps build longer-term relationships that keep everyone healthier.

 

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