One of the beautiful things about electronically logging and tracking time study data is you have a clear view of a remarkable truth – with just a small investment of time and effort, it’s possible to see substantial increases in Medicare reimbursement.
Our case study, conducted at a top-notch transplant center, serves as a shining example of how a focused approach to data collection and analysis with MyTimeStudy can provide an incredible return on investment, even when key factors may be working against you.
The Results
In one fiscal year on MyTimeStudy, our transplant center client saw:
17% average increase in time study funding across all organs
$200,000+ increase in CMS funding generated by time studies
$3,000+ increase per organ in total organ acquisition funding
83% overall time study participation rate
All that improvement occurred while our client faced:
16% decrease in total organ volume
11% decrease in Medicare organ volume
2% decrease in CMS funding generated by non–time study items
How We Got There
Our client, one of the largest and most complex transplant centers in the western US, is easily one of the toughest real world environments to prove the value of MyTimeStudy. Over 3x the size of an average transplant center, our client had hundreds of people, in dozens of roles, working every day to support multiple types of organ transplants. Needless to say, they had A LOT of hours to track in their time studies.
Fortunately, our client was open to looking at ways to improve their time study process, and after they began using MyTimeStudy, we introduced them to time study funding per organ, a metric we created to help transplant centers quantify how the CMS funding time studies generate for the organization. While that may seem like an obvious approach now that I’ve said it out loud, in reality, nobody thought to break it out this way before us. Before time study funding per organ, transplant centers like our client only looked at overall organ acquisition funding per organ. This was a poor choice of metrics because organ acquisition funding doesn’t delineate the funding from time studies (which is variable) from the funding from equipment and services (which is fixed). Bottom line: Whether a transplant center’s organ acquisition funding went up or down, it was nearly impossible to figure out while using organ acquisition.
Once we helped our client shift their focus to improving their time study funding per organ and applied MyTimeStudy’s proprietary time study personalization process to their studies, the results were immediately evident. Time study engagement and hours increased steadily every month on the platform, which ultimately resulted in our client achieving a 17% average increase in time study funding per organ.
That 17% increase led to over $200,000 in additional funding for our client simply because they did a better job of tracking hours using MyTimeStudy. This in turn resulted in a $3,000+ per organ increase in organ acquisition funding. How do we know all these gains came from tracking hours and not something else? Because we love data, so we examined and isolated all the transplant data from a number of angles to pinpoint the answer:
Did the increase come from acquiring more organs? – No, our client had a 16% decrease in their total organ volume.
Did the increase come from seeing more Medicare patients? – Nope, our client had a 11% decrease in their Medicare organ volume and has a decrease in Medicare Ratio for 3 of their 5 organ groups.
Did the increase come from other things than time studies? – Negative, our client actually saw a 2% reduction in funding tied to non–time study items.
Against all those headwinds, it’s a real testament to our clients’ commitment to the process and MyTimeStudy that they were able to capture Medicare funds that would otherwise have been left on the table.
And that is how MyTimeStudy helped one large transplant center collect more overall time study funding despite having transplanted fewer organs. It’s right there in the data.
(By the way, these results were generated across a system where physicians accounted for just 19% of the total reimbursable hours. That other 81% is why we are so insistent on changing internal culture to capture non-physician hours, as discussed in my previous blog.)
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