As an NP business owner dedicated to exceptional patient experience, EHR-generated patient reports can provide valuable insights into patient care. Today, healthcare analytics is no longer just for large organizations and systems— practices of every size and specialty can benefit from analytics for everything from how to improve patient outcomes in value-based care to safeguarding your bottom line.
Healthcare Analytics to Support Patient-Centric Approach to Care
Patients are increasingly more engaged in their own healthcare. Legislation, such as the 21st Century Cures Act, strongly asserts quality of care for patients and unfettered access to their healthcare data should be a top priority.
As healthcare consumers become savvier about treatment plans, they also become more selective. For this reason, a patient-centric approach offers the best chance to improve patient outcomes and for private practice success.
How Can Data Be Leveraged for Patient-Centered Care?
Unless providers leverage data analytics, their EHR is not much more than a digital filing cabinet doing little to improve patient outcomes. When properly leveraged, healthcare analytics can help NP entrepreneurs make data-driven decisions for patient care. That is because EHRs capture a broad range of data for gaining key operational insights on patient outcomes and financial impacts.
Regarding patient-centered care, healthcare analytics also contain pertinent patient information that diagnostic tests generally cannot uncover, such as patient questionnaires and patient-reported quality of life. Since reports aggregate clinical data from multiple sources, healthcare analytics for nurse practitioners paint a holistic picture of each individual patient and patient population groups as well.
Patients who do not have a primary care provider, or those who require care from multiple providers, may feel apprehensive about a visit with an unknown provider. However, with EHR interoperability powered by the right healthcare analytics, providers can quickly put patients at ease by indicating comprehensive knowledge of their healthcare journey. Nurse practitioner practice owners gain confidence from analytics because they know that their recommendations are well-informed and not made based on fragmented data.
How Nurse Entrepreneurs Improve Patient Experience
For nurse practitioner entrepreneurs, patient-centric care that is focused on improving patient outcomes is second nature. After all, many will ask themselves: “How can nurses improve patient outcomes?” and find that independent practice is the answer.
Independent nurse practitioners also choose to be autonomous in the health system so that they can make patient-focused, data-driven recommendations based upon analytics. Making independent decisions intended to improve patient outcomes can be done more confidently through recommendations gleaned from health reporting based on evidence-based practices.
They also rely on data analytics to increase continuity of care and enhance provider-patient relationships. That continuity lends itself to improved communication with patients, care teams, and specialists – leading to an improved overall patient experience that can also boost value-based care performance. Other examples of how analytics can help improve outcomes include:
- Establishing informed workflows for chronic care management
- Improving transitions of care
- Identifying and addressing gaps-in-care
Using Data to Track and Improve NP Business Success
For an independent nurse practitioner’s practice’s financial well-being, it is important to have a steady stream of income. However, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) reveals that 50-65% of denials are never remedied due to a lack of time or know-how. This pitfall leaves revenue on the table and can be avoided by having a denial management process in place, this process can be as simple as:
- Step 1 – Analyze denials
- Step 2 – Uncover why the claims were denied
- Step 3 – Identify actionable trends that result from either the payer or processes
EHRs can automatically route certain types of claim denials to specific staff members along with the functionality for staff to sort them by selected attributes. This can help manage claim denials in a timely fashion, improving cash flow. To reduce such denials, you can use data to track and analyze claim denial trends.
Claims data also reveal opportunities for remedial staff training within your organization. Your EHR’s denial management reporting allows you to see your practice’s most common claim denial reasons and which payers have the highest claim denial rates. Tracking and understanding these trends can help ensure that claims are accepted the first time, which should increase both efficiency and revenue.
Outsourcing your billing to a trusted nurse practitioner business consultant is another way for NP business owners to increase reimbursement and minimize denied claims, without the need to dedicate their time to billing or hire and train in-practice billing staff.
NP Advantage Can Help
Setting up an EHR in your NP practice is one of the most significant expenses you will incur, so finding ways to extract more value will expand your return on investment. To improve patient care as a whole, and to uncover preventable revenue losses, it pays to leverage your EHR data to gain critical insights into where actionable opportunities lie.
Our consultants will make sure that the reporting of your practice’s data is streamlined with a clear presentation of insights. Our EHR healthcare data solution is centered around the goal of improving patient health outcomes while promoting the health of your business.
NP Advantage practice analytics consultants approach independent practices in the spirit of partnership. Our teams work with you to customize reports from your EHR according to your chosen metrics, to ensure your data is leveraged most effectively and clearly. Your view of success should also be easy to decipher, and we understand that it varies from practice to practice.