The following is a guest blog post by Tarun Kabaria; Executive VP, Provider Operations at Ciox.
Effective communication and trust are the essential keys to any relationship, and the plan-provider relationship is no different. A shift towards value-based coordinated accountable care has urged health plans and providers to collaborate to improve population health and patient experience while lowering costs. Most plan-provider communication revolves around rate negotiations.
An open, honest relationship with transparent communication and cooperation is needed to bridge the communication gap and create mutually beneficial partnerships. Sharing data, creating health plan-provider networks, utilizing audits and providing access to new technologies are all methods health plans and providers could use to help promote collaboration and bridge communication.
Data Sharing Across the Care Continuum
To foster collaboration, data sharing should be implemented and incentives should be aligned across the care continuum so that both parties are motivated to improve outcomes and lower costs. Data sharing is one of the key benefits of bridging the communication gap between health plans and providers.
Health plans hold the bulk of useful data and, when that data is combined with the providers’ clinical expertise, the likely result is better patient outcomes. Sharing data gives providers access to claims information that also provides with them a patient’s entire medical history. This information is useful in helping educate patients about their health risks and to boost transparency in plan-provider communication.
Health plans and providers keep a vast amount of patient information. Health plans have historical claims data while providers have clinical data. Both parties use their data for checks and balances and to mutually determine the best treatment and most appropriate care for patients. Lack of collaboration, usually due to interoperability challenges, means both data types aren’t shared. A key aspect to achieving collaboration and alignment is trust. Sometimes parties are lacking in trust when it comes to the use of their data; however, advancements in technology and use of the blockchain to create transparency are helping to change the tides.
Health plans and providers must have upfront discussions on what information will be shared, and each party must share data that is useful to the other. For health plans, this means understanding how reimbursement is determined, the factors that influence the payments they receive and how they are reimbursed based on clinical outcomes rather than interventions delivered. In turn, providers must clearly communicate the clinical outcomes health plans are or are not achieving. Ultimately, all measures should include preventative care, lower per capita cost and improve population health as well as patient experience and satisfaction. They should also improve how data is managed and transitioned. Providers that implement a strategic quality management approach to deliver high-quality, valued-based care can achieve better clinical outcomes.
Health Plan-provider Networks
Plan-provider communication networks are needed to efficiently and effectively harness data from both parties and enable rapid innovation and the sharing of real-time data for immediate response. Health plan-provider networks utilize care management, electronic health records (EHRs), and analytics to seek to resolve communication and collaboration challenges between health plans and providers. In keeping with HIPAA regulations, communication between health plans and providers must be customized to include only information that is relevant to specific attributed patient populations, physicians, reimbursement and care delivery models. The goal of plan-provider networks is to present both parties with transparent, high-quality data to improve trust and increase health plan-provider engagement to improve communication and, ultimately, population health.
Using Audits to Bridge Communication
The rise of audit requests has posed a problem in the plan-provider relationship. Both health plans and providers must work toward greater compliance, and auditing medical records is a crucial step in the process.
Providers struggle with numerous types of information requests from various third-party health plans, governmental agencies and national health plans, which often have different deadlines and vernaculars. As a result, health plans are forced to repeatedly call health information management (HIM) and audit departments when claims data inaccurately identifies place of service, provider or other patient information. An upsurge in audit requests from commercial and other health plans threatens to exacerbate these problems.
The audit process can change the plan-provider relationship from adversarial to advantageous by improving communication. Bridging communication gaps and language barriers through clearer record requests would take the burden off providers and alleviate plan problems. Technology will also play a critical role in making this entire process as automated as possible.
Chart requests that come from commercial health plan audits represent just five percent of all requests that providers receive. Hospitals also receive high volumes of medical record requests from other hospitals, physicians, attorneys, patients and more. The problem is that commercial plans often assume they are the only requestor. Education is required on both sides of the audit equation to improve processes and reduce plan-provider friction.
For providers, all data from each request and submission should be entered in a centralized audit management software application for the organization. This helps providers track audit activity by health plan and type of audit, maintain a record of all documents sent, better manage requests, and stay abreast of audit trends.
Patient access, clinical coders, billers and collectors perform unique functions and speak different languages across the hospital revenue cycle. Similarly, commercial health plans have multiple departments and terminology involved in audit processing. In many cases, inter-departmental communication and language barriers are the main obstacles to overcome. However, technology is playing a growing role in creating greater transparency within the healthcare ecosystem—by acquiring, digitizing and giving shape to both structured and unstructured records.
Time Will Tell
Bridging the communication gap will not happen overnight. It will take time and effort from all parties involved; however, these methods are a good starting point.
As the digital era has taken hold, our attentions are turning to a better utilization of the vast data flowing through both providers and health plans. This will translate into a better understanding of patient outcomes, improved revenue cycles and more insightful growth strategies for all parties.
About Ciox
Ciox, a health technology company and proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene, is dedicated to significantly improving U.S. health outcomes by transforming clinical data into actionable insights. Combined with an unmatched network offering ubiquitous access to healthcare data, Ciox’s expertise, relationships, technology and scale allow for the extraction of insights from structured and unstructured clinical data to create value for healthcare stakeholders. Through its HealthSource technology platform, which includes solutions for data acquisition, release of information, clinical coding, data abstraction, and analytics, Ciox helps clients securely and consistently solve the last mile challenges in clinical interoperability. Ciox improves data management and sharing by modernizing workflows and increasing the accuracy and flow of information, while providing transparency across the healthcare ecosystem and helping clients manage disparate medical records. Learn more at www.ciox.com.
