New research commissioned by Ingenious Med finds that 75% of healthcare leaders do not have adequate insight into physician productivity — particularly concerning given the ongoing workforce crisis.

Our survey of 101 health system and hospital leaders, which will be published in a forthcoming report, also shows that more than half expect the staffing shortages to continue for 1-2 years or longer.

The research also illustrates that the impacts of workforce challenges are literally preventing organizations from maximizing revenue due to increased days in accounts receivable, increased errors that result from hiring less experienced revenue cycle management staff, and rising labor costs. 

Among the consequences health system and hospital leaders are facing are the numerous hours spent on revenue cycle management processes, and lags between services delivered and charges captured.

More than half of respondents say RCM processing consumes more than 5 hours per week, and more than one-third say it takes more than 10 hours every week. Likewise, nearly half of healthcare leaders indicate that the time between service and charge capture is three days or longer, and for one-fifth of organizations it takes more than six days.

One-third of respondents, in fact, say physicians at their organization spend at least 5-10 hours per week collecting documentation to substantiate charges, and 46% estimate that to be between 2-5 hours. 

The research findings point to a clear need for health systems, hospitals, physician groups, and ambulatory surgery centers to improve physician productivity, charge capture, and overall revenue cycle management to bolster financial performance. 

Executives who are currently considering or developing strategies to improve physician productivity can look to TeamHealth, a physician services provider, as an example of how to successfully make that transformation a part of the organization’s culture. In 2018, TeamHealth began building a physician productivity program that comprises charge capture tools, data analytics, a calculator for volumes and staffing levels, an executive dashboard, and productivity coaches. 

TeamHealth launched the initiative at 56 sites as a research study to monitor the impact on productivity as well as key performance metrics. The control, pre-implementation period consisted of 19 months starting January 2019 through July 2020. The post-implementation period spanned 17 months from August 2020 through December 2021. All the elements of the program were in place and monitored during the post-implementation period. 

Pre-Implementation vs. Post-Implementation Improvements

TeamHealth started by identifying individuals in the organization already operating at high levels of performance to learn from them and disseminate their practices to support others. 

“We engaged those leaders specifically and learned what they were doing to be so successful. Then we drew from their best practices and built what we call the Hospital Medicine Productivity Program, which is a robust set of tactics that all of our leaders can learn from,” says Rohit Uppal, MD, Chief Clinical Officer, Hospitalist Services, Team Health. “It has been the secret sauce to the success of this initiative.”

In addition to increasing physician productivity, TeamHealth’s program reduced readmissions, shortened length of stay, improved Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores, and increased timely discharges. 

Read the case study, How TeamHealth Built a ‘Hospital Medicine Productivity Program’ to Drive Efficiencies with Ingenious Med’s Help, to learn more about how TeamHealth established the program to address workforce shortages and financial pressures.