In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for digital innovation and technology adoption in healthcare, according to Andy De, senior director of healthcare solutions at Alteryx.
Telemedicine utilization has soared for patient triaging and follow-up, public health officials have harnessed widespread data to track outbreaks, and organizations have deployed remote patient monitoring tools to optimize care.
"We see this huge digital transformation happening," Mr. De said. "Underpinning this is the use of descriptive and predictive analytics." Mr. De discussed this digital transformation and Alteryx's analytics automation platform during a Sept. 17 webinar sponsored by Alteryx and hosted by Becker's Hospital Review.
Mr. De was joined by two leaders at Coram CVS Specialty Infusion Services, which delivers infusion therapy services in home-based and outpatient settings:
- Brandon Von Kaenel, senior manager of specialty analytics and automation
- Zachary White, analytics adviser
With Alteryx, Mr. White said, "Our team has designed hundreds of workflows to solve a vast array of different problems, and we're still unboxing all the different things Alteryx can do."
To scratch the surface, here are four ways Coram CVS Specialty leveraged Alteryx:
1. To automate time-consuming analytics processes. With the ability to pull data from disparate sources, Alteryx enabled Coram to automate billing worklists and mapping. The 100,000 or so daily claims transactions that once took about 20 hours to manage manually are now processed in three minutes using Alteryx's automation capabilities, with a worklist delivered at the start of each day.
"Supervisors are able to refocus their time on different efforts," Mr. Von Kaenel said. "It enhances error-free worklists, and it elevates staff engagement because they're able to start their days on time."
2. To improve financial performance. Claims with errors often aren't worked in a timely manner, hurting both the patient payment experience and the likelihood of payment in full. To address this problem, Coram deployed a dashboard for real-time tracking of claims errors, statuses and prioritization.
3. To improve engagement. Before turning to Alteryx, Coram's data team was fielding an overwhelming number of requests to pull data — such as a claim's balance or age — from large lists. The Coram Look-Up Engine, a self-service data reporting tool, now allows billers and collectors to access this data without needing to log a request and wait for a response from the data team. As a result, the data team saves time to address more complicated requests and leaves less room for human error.
"If there's a complex request that involves pulling and parsing things from the system, it's difficult to have that done the same way every time," Mr. White said. "With Alteryx, we set it, and it does the same thing every time."
4. To unlock strategic business benefits. Overall, Alteryx solutions have enabled Coram to simplify staff worklists and equip them with nice-to-have data, enhance data with the implementation of monitoring tools, integrate service-level agreements into different processes, and preserve revenue integrity with increased visibility into claims management.
Its unbilled worklist solution, for instance, saved the business 20 hours a day – or 400 hours a month – with limited analytics effort, according to Mr. Von Kaenel. Plus, by implementing a claims statusing tool, Coram gained the ability to process 4,000 claims worth of work every week, supplementing its workforce by about 20 full-time equivalents.
"I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of the capabilities within Alteryx itself, and yet we've able to really revolutionize the revenue cycle and the experience of our organization," Mr. White said. "With Alteryx, your creativity and your imagination are your only limitations. … You have a broad array of tools at your disposal to accomplish a wide array of tasks that you may be doing in your day-to-day processes.
Click here to view a recording of the webinar.
