Helping hospitals and health care providers address the financial, operational and clinical implications of payment reform is the goal of Schumacher Clinical Partners’ newly integrated Consulting Services division. From market strategy through operations and technology implementation, our team of experts works with health care organizations of all sizes to provide value-added consulting services.
Currently, the national shift from volume (e.g., Fee for Service) to value-based payment methodologies has triggered the need for strategic and operational adaptations in the health care industry that our Consulting team is helping to address.
Substance, style sets SCP consulting services apart
What sets SCP Consulting Services apart from our competitors can be aptly described in two words: substance and approach. We have all the resources of a large company and the personalized service of a boutique firm. We combine real-world experience averaging 20 years for each expert on staff and address clients’ issues with a professional, yet personal approach.
Rick Kramer, Managing Partner, SCP Consulting Services, describes it best, saying, “We take the organization from ideas to sustainable execution. While we have proven approaches, templates, and tools, we’re best at solving thorny, multifunctional, cross-organizational, unstructured problems — the kind that no hospital CEO cares to address without expert guidance.”
Linus Diedling, Partner, SCP Consulting Services, adds, “What the health care industry is looking for are professional consultants who can solve problems quickly and also bring a reality-based perspective developed from experience working in the field. Practical solutions are what they want, not theories, and that’s what we provide – personalized, custom solutions to problems, not something off the shelf.”
Services focused around payment reform
“In moving from a volume to value-based model, payment reform is now the major driver in health care today,” Kramer further remarked. “We focus on four main service areas, our “Centers of Excellence”: Strategy, Clinical Operations Performance, Revenue Cycle Transformation, and Telehealth. Each is distinct, but all are linked to the central issue of payment reform.”
Below is a more detailed description list of the four Centers of Excellence:
Strategy: Our Strategy Center of Excellence provides advisory and implementation services for market growth, partnerships, strategic planning, and execution of alternative payment models that include value-based payment strategy, ambulatory expansion planning, physician strategy and network development, and mergers and acquisitions.
Clinical Operations Performance: We design and refine processes and programs that enable facilities to achieve key clinical, operational, and financial performance metrics for individual service lines across the organization. We perform a root cause analysis to diagnose areas that require short-term performance improvement as well as those needing long-term changes in mindset and behavior.
Revenue Cycle Transformation: Our approach to revenue cycle transformation integrates clinical and financial systems through process and technology, to translate clinical services into collectable and sustainable revenue across all types of reimbursement methodologies. We employ a multi-dimensional approach designed to uncover opportunities for early gains while laying the foundation for future successes.
Telehealth: Many organizations are looking to expand and develop a telehealth program that includes multiple strategically-aligned, market-focused services. We developed a model to measure the client’s current maturity level concerning telehealth, establish new services, and accelerate existing service to more advanced stages of success.
SCP consulting services case studies
Two case studies, from real-world settings, illustrate the breadth of SCP’s Consulting Services capabilities:
Revenue cycle management
One client, an eight-facility health care system based in Portland, Maine, had experienced growth but shown little movement toward standardizing operating procedures or centralizing functions. For example, the system did not have a corporate revenue cycle management organization to provide oversight for system-wide operational initiatives.
SCP Consulting Services performed an operational assessment within all the member organizations, focusing on staffing, use of technology, and processes within Access Care, Revenue Capture, and Business Office functions.
Although the project is still ongoing, significant gains have been made, which include:
- Development and initiation of Key Performance Reporting tools;
- Authoring a comprehensive four-phase roadmap to help set the stage for a Corporate Revenue Cycle Organizational Model;
- Development of a migration plan to consolidate functions and develop “Centers of Excellence”;
- Identification of short-term and ongoing revenue preservation and generation initiatives.
Health system performance improvement
A large not-for-profit integrated health system that owns multiple facilities was losing volume to emerging competitors in the market place and was experiencing downward pressure on managed care contract pricing.
Consulting Services partnered with the system to achieve the targeted cost position using a rigorous strategic cost management process that involved:
- Creating a communication plan to engage employees, physicians, and other key stakeholders in the importance of the cost improvement effort;
- Identifying opportunities for cost improvement through productivity, supply chain, and service line reconfiguration changes;
- Executing cost improvements through training efforts with department managers and directors;
- Creating a process for ensuring accountability and sustainability of the cost improvement plan.
Conclusion
“Ultimately, the goal of Schumacher Clinical Partners is to shift from being a staffing company to a true clinical services partner,” Diedling said. “With the integration of the Consulting Services division, we now have the ability to support performance improvement, not only in our EM and HM services, but across the organization.”
Thanks to the depth of experience, professionalism, and personalized approach to solving problems with practical, customized solutions, our expert consultants can help health care organizations adapt to the ever-changing world of payment reform.
