Almost every organization has data available to them. The size and scope of that data and the abilities to process it vary considerably from one group to another, but the marketing and business development objectives are generally the same: to maximize its value, minimize the time spent on activity that doesn’t generate a return, and identify and seize key opportunities that will.
Of course, there’s a vast amount of data commercially available from groups like Lexis and Definitive — claims data from clearinghouses, for example — that aims to provide a comprehensive picture of healthcare services delivered in a particular market. There are sophisticated algorithms that can be run against that data to identify key targets based on any number of attributes or variables. (Want to know if there’s a physician group in your area that tends to refer exclusively to a certain specialist? You might be able to find out!) There are companies that can package all of it together and put a bow on top for you.
The promise of this kind of data analysis, for those that can afford it, is detailed information not just about patient and referral activity within an organization, but also the activity happening outside of it. If that sounds like a major investment, that’s mostly because it often is. For organizations with limits on either their budgets or people to throw at the problem, is there still something to be gained with a less ambitious approach? Yes!
Any electronic health record or documentation system has potential value waiting to be unlocked. We focus largely on referrer information: picking the best targets and finding patterns with the goal of expand the referral base to improve patient volume. Using in-house data sources won’t usually provide information about what is happening outside of your organization, but that doesn’t negate the value that can be found within.
For example: relatively simple (I mean, as far as these things go) analysis on referrer information can uncover insights that can be used to inform and improve the efforts of the physician liaisons and marketing and outreach teams. Every organization has different capabilities for tackling projects like this. But whether you’re equipped with a dedicated data analytics team or you’re armed with only off-the-shelf business intelligence tools like Qlik or Tableau, everyone should use their data to guide their marketing and referral generation efforts.
As a starting point, here are some potential questions you might ask your data to answer and suggestions about how that information can be used:
Analyze Specialties
Do certain specialties, on average, refer a higher number of patients? Are there any correlations between referrer specialty and patients that are more valuable — however that value is determined by your organization? That may be procedures, visits, charges, collections, or some other metric. Do certain specialties have a natural connection or tendency to refer to particular service lines? Use that information when creating marketing and outreach plans.
Look at Activity Patterns
Are there any referring physicians who have changed their historical referral patterns recently, perhaps referring either more or less than their historical average? Are there referrers who have not sent a patient in the last 3 or 6 months? New referrers who have sent patients for the first time? Referrers meeting those criteria may be worth going out of the way to visit.
Identify Individuals
Can you identify the best (or worst) members of your referral base? An objective way of measuring and ranking the referring physicians (we use a combination of patient count, visits, and charges, among others) can help improve the return of your marketing and liaison team’s limited resources by letting them focus on the most important targets. Give your team members a scalpel instead of an axe.
Find New Referrers
Publicly available APIs and data sources can be used to identify physicians in your area that have not referred to your organization in the past, indicating potential expansion opportunities for your referral base. There is a wealth of information out there: Google, CMS, BetterDoc, Doximity, and many others. Use it.
Improve Efficacy
Are there members of your marketing or outreach team who are more effective at getting partners to refer patients? Is there any correlation between outreach activity and the amount of referral activity (e.g. number of visits or types of visits most likely to lead to a referral)? That information could help with resource allocation and improve forecasting.
At this point, I’ll add that Wildfire Labs’s Ember application provides a lot of this analysis “for free” to clients when we connect to their EHR. However, none of this stuff is rocket surgery, and the data analysts or business intelligence teams at many healthcare organizations should be able to provide analysis of this sort, especially if they are pointed in the right direction.
For the groups out there with seemingly endless resources, the sky’s the limit when it comes to data sources and analysis. For the rest of us, the advice that’s long been been (apparently falsely, though it’s still a good quote!) attributed to Teddy Roosevelt is valuable : “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”