Physician Practice & Clinics Operations Improvement

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Situation

Aspirus Physician Practice and Clinics (“Aspirus”) is the medical group operated by the Aspirus system, a non-profit, community-directed Wisconsin health system. Aspirus network membership includes more than 300 physicians and 75 Advanced Practice Providers, 8 hospitals and 48 specialties. In 2013, Aspirus was losing money, and patient access issues hurt the bottom line. Although Aspirus added 50 providers over five years, it took some patients as long as four months to get an appointment.

Solution

Aspirus and Prism established project teams to identify underlying problems, including poor scheduling practices, inconsistent patient interaction and little patient sharing among same specialty providers. Scheduling requirements varied dramatically by provider, with some preconditions as long as 30 pages to book a single appointment. The teams also found documentation and charge capture opportunities.Prism and Aspirus implemented a number of initiatives to increase efficiency and boost revenues, all while improving patient care and satisfaction. Initiatives included:

Determined each provider’s actual vs. reported full time equivalent (FTE) and created specific patient access criteria for each FTE
Standardized patient access policies and procedures
Restructured provider schedules
Established daily and monthly operating targets and trackers
Created and executed training for non-provider staff on new patient access procedures
Realigned responsibilities to ensure staff members work at the top of their licenses
Enhanced charge capture and increased documentation accuracy
Reduced time to complete a chart (lag days) by more than 50%

Within 12 months, Aspirus increased patient access, improved patient throughput and decreased the cost per visit.