Tracking the Patterns
Consider the following typical question: is the practice providing a reasonable number of anesthetizing locations given the expectations of the surgeons (which can be unpredictable and capricious)? This is the kind of question that might be answered based on experience and intuition or it might be answered by a careful review of actual utilization patterns.
Consider the following chart, which is an actual client example. How many providers are required on peak days and how much does the requirement drop on Fridays? Being able to track activity in this way and being able to monitor how patterns change over time can be critical in terms of predicting staffing needs as things change.
These charts consider all surgical cases performed by the practice from Monday to Friday. Weekends are excluded because they require different coverage. Obstetric cases are also excluded. The data can be filtered by date range, venue and surgeon, which makes it especially helpful in drilling down on a particular line of business.
What’s Required?
What is required to monitor the practice in this way? Essentially the data is already being captured by virtue of our current charge capture process. The only piece of information that practices want to make sure they are capturing consistently is the anesthetizing location. Practices that want to be able to generate detailed utilization data reports should make sure they have a clear schedule of locations and that all providers are documenting locations consistently.
What is the ultimate value to detailed utilization data? The key to successful anesthesia contracts is profitability. What is the cost of providing the required services and what is the revenue potential? Based on the manpower provided, most practices have a fairly good idea of their cost per anesthetizing location. Detailed utilization data as measured in units billed and hours of care per anesthetizing location can be quite instructive. It is the variability of utilization data by location that allows groups to track activity by location.
Drilling down to this level of detail for your practice can be an especially useful way to refine your strategic plan.