CHIME Series: Are Self-Insured Providers the Future of Healthcare?

As healthcare’s future continues to be battled on The Hill, we recently conducted a College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) survey that outlined several questions around the various data-challenges facing healthcare organizations in the transition to value. This week’s blog focuses on the survey question: With the shift to value-based care, has your health system considered becoming or adopting parts of an integrated healthcare system (i.e., becoming a provider and a payer)? The results show that more than half (61.7 percent) of respondents have considered moving towards this model. As the U.S. healthcare spend continues to rise, with average healthcare costs close to $10,000 and the national level equaling more than 3 trillion, the need to better manage expenses is a top priority. One way to do this is through the cohesion of payers and providers, along with the use of data analytics as a guiding light.

At MedeAnalytics, we’ve worked with two healthcare organizations who have created an integrated healthcare system and utilized their valuable data resources to create analytics platforms that break down barriers and lead to lower costs and higher quality care.

Covenant Health: Covenant Health (Covenant), a self-insured hospital, uses data analytics to adopt an innovative approach to population health to drive down costs and engage in preventative care initiatives. Using a data analytics approach they achieved the following:

  1. Identified healthcare utilization to improve care for employees and their families
  2. Designed benefit plans
  3. Reduced overall health spend

By drawing insights from population health data, they strategically identified at-risk patients and proactively managed their care. Covenant determined that employee healthcare costs were more than 10 percent higher than the general population. Overall, just 9 percent of the highest risk employees were found to be responsible for 40 percent of employee health plan costs. The insights found in the data enabled them to proactively manage their employee population to identify exactly where money was being spent.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services: Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS), is an integrated healthcare provider and payer organization, looking to improve quality and reduce costs. Using data analytics, they strategically differentiated themselves and have added value within their integrated model. To achieve their success, PHS focused on three distinct categories:

  1. Created Value for Key Stakeholders 
  2. Integrated Payer and Provider Analytics
  3. Promoted a Data-Driven Culture 

PHS achieved ROI in its clinical, operational and financial areas within their enterprise. Additionally, PHS recognized operational efficiencies by replacing seven analytics vendors with MedeAnalytics, reducing redundancies and achieving quick wins with business stakeholders. More so, PHS expects to save millions in 2017 by improving collection for Medicaid encounters and increasing business development revenue.

To learn more about Covenant’s success, check out their case study here. For insights on PHS’ journey with data analytics, click here. If you’re looking for ways to become an integrated system or want to learn more, reach out to us: https://medeanalytics.com/company/contact.

Posted in

MedeAnalytics

MedeAnalytics is a leader in healthcare analytics, providing innovative solutions that enable measurable impact for healthcare payers and providers. With the most advanced data orchestration in healthcare, payers and providers count on us to deliver actionable insights that improve financial, operational, and clinical outcomes. To date, we’ve helped uncover millions of dollars in savings annually.

Leave a Comment





Get our take on industry trends

Why Health Plans and Employers Need Stop Loss Reporting

September 10, 2019

Due to rising healthcare costs and the Affordable Care Act removing the ban on capitated benefits coverage, numerous employers with self-insured health plans often purchase stop loss coverage. This coverage is not medical insurance; but rather, it’s a financial and risk management tool that protects the employer from excessive claims.

Read on...

Bridge the Payer/Provider Data Gap

August 23, 2019

Every patient has a plethora of data associated with their health record, which can include decades of enrollments, claims, accounts and charges. Much of this data is not housed within the same institutional, facility or provider database…

Read on...

Digging deeper: Leveraging analytics to boost service line profitability

June 19, 2019

Regardless of the size of the hospital or health system, you need to look beyond traditional operational metrics to fully understand your organization’s performance. Insights into revenue, volume, cost, quality and variation across service lines are key to improving both performance and profitability.

Read on...