Reduce Cost and Network and Patient Leakage
Network and patient leakage are better controlled when clinics leverage referral tools like eConsults. With value-based care, reducing the cost of patient referrals as well as wait times has a tremendous impact. We want to help patients stay compliant and avoid high-cost alternatives like the ED. Here are three ways clinics can reduce costs and get patients faster care
- Providing care with specialist support
- Routing patients to the appropriate provider using decision-support tools that evaluate location, insurance coverage, and sub-specialty.
- Tracking in-person referrals to ensure patients make and go to the appointment, receive the care, and have access to appropriate follow-up.
In this video, Pam Gould, RN & Chief Growth Officer at AristaMD, discusses how eConsults alone can reduce network and patient leakage.
Can Virtual Physician-to-Physician Consults Decrease Patient Leakage?
We believe they can. Making sure that patients stay in-network is important. Patients are less likely to receive care if they are referred to a specialist that is out of network. In addition, the cost of care goes up when patient leakage occurs. Our healthcare system makes it difficult for your staff to know which specialists are in-network. It’s even more difficult for the patient to navigate. eConsults can help by offering patients specialty care with the provider they know best — their PCP.
eConsults Improve Health System Revenue Strategy
eConsults provide a secure and documented messaging platform that facilitates direct communication between primary care providers (PCPs) and specialists, directly benefitting FFS health systems by supporting their revenue strategy in several ways.
1. Improve Patient Retention
For healthcare organizations across the board, improving patient retention, or reducing patient leakage, is a vitally important goal for shoring up revenue. The reason for this is apparent: patient leakage is expensive.
- According to 2018 survey data, 43% of healthcare organizations are losing more than 10% of their revenue
- 19% of healthcare organizations are losing more than 20% of revenue as a result of patient leakage
- 54% of referrals lead to completed specialist appointments
- According to Health Care Dive, almost half of doctors struggle to determine what specialists are in-network
Adopting an eConsult platform can assist with retaining patients for specialty care and related services, both increasing FFS revenue and improving performance under value-based care arrangements.