Effective patient engagement in today's healthcare environment requires the seamless integration of data-backed insights into current workflows.
Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with Howard Bright, CTO of patient engagement at RevSpring, about how health systems can leverage data to drive meaningful, long-term success in patient engagement efforts.
Note: Responses edited for length and clarity.
Question: In your experience, what are the biggest challenges healthcare organizations face when collecting patient data? How do these issues affect patient engagement?
Howard Bright: When it comes to collecting patient data, one challenge is getting people to respond and provide information. Healthcare organizations need effective techniques to gently nudge patients to provide data, without alienating them.
The other big challenge is getting the right data from patients the first time. A lot of data collection relates to demographic and insurance information so that providers can bill and get reimbursed. There's a lot of confusion among patients because most patients don't really understand insurance and the terminology that is used.
Q: How are innovative technologies helping address some of these challenges?
HB: When you contact patients, it's important to reach out using the communication channel they prefer. Some patients want to communicate through email or text, while others prefer to talk to a human over the phone. The idea is to reach out to each patient in the way they want — and to use data to identify that preferred communication channel. Innovative technology exists to figure that out, so you aren't making assumptions. You must meet patients where they are.
With analytics, you can determine what works best and what doesn't. Today, almost every retail company knows how to send emails and how to identify which emails consumers are opening, what communication cadence is most effective, what coupon codes they're using, etc. Healthcare organizations need to take a similar approach to figure out how best to communicate with each person, to effectively engage them in their healthcare journey.
Based on analytics, you can identify the right cadence for communications. Often, patients won't respond to the first message, but if you wait a day and send a second one that builds on the first with slightly different messaging, it can work better.
It's also important to determine the right time of day to reach people and the right communication sequence — is it a text followed by an email, or an email followed by a text?
Q: What strategies can turn improvements in data collection into measurable, long-term benefits for healthcare organizations?
HB: Some metrics for patient engagement relate to communication techniques, such as opt-outs and unsubscribes. The other measures you really need are standard revenue cycle metrics. Are denials going down? Is data accuracy going up? Are days in AR going down? Patient engagement metrics are also important, since happy patients are returning patients.
However, the most important metrics for any provider organization are the core business metrics, such as revenue cycle numbers, revenue leakage and denials. Effective patient engagement should ultimately help improve all of the core metrics. If patient engagement strategies aren't moving your revenue cycle numbers, you'll know they aren't effective.
Q: What does an effective data collection and patient engagement strategy look like? What's the number one differentiator between successful programs and less effective ones?
HB: Unsuccessful patient engagement programs result in patient agitation. The number one problem is asking patients for information they've already shared with you. You can use technology to be smart about not re-asking for information.
Rather than asking patients to enter information again, ask them to confirm data you already have. Another effective technique is to ask if data has changed for things like address, contact information, pharmacy, etc.
Tailored communication based on your specific goals can also make data collection more successful. With new patients, for example, you can use messaging to set expectations that you will be asking a lot of questions upfront. If you're trying to bill insurance and you're missing a piece of data, tell the patient that you're trying to reduce their out-of-pocket cost by billing their insurance company.
If the data you're getting is wrong, try wording questions slightly differently and then do A/B testing to see what language is most effective. Let the data drive the results, rather than guessing.
Q: Why is it important to address the root causes of data collection errors and how can doing so position an organization for sustainable success?
HB: Data collection forms the cornerstone of the revenue cycle, so you must find data collection errors and fix them. Good data is needed to efficiently bill insurance companies and bill patients for their balance. If your data isn't sound, it will affect metrics that your chief financial officer worries about. Often patients are willing to do some of the work to ensure data accuracy, which can save money on staffing.
Q: Is there anything else we didn't touch on that you'd like to mention?
HB: RevSpring helps healthcare organizations drive long-term success and patient engagement through personalized and tailored patient communications both pre- and post-service. We use their preferred communication channels and offer secure ways to provide data electronically back to providers.
In addition to technology for provider-to-patient communications, we also offer provider-to-provider data collection to support efficient workflows.