Priority Management
As the healthcare industry quickens pace, providers must learn how to better plan and prioritize.
March 22, 2016
Category: News
The pace of business is gaining speed. Providers need to do more with less, faster and more accurately than ever so they can simply survive, let alone thrive. A well planned priority management program aligns the day-to-day work efforts of your teams with your company’s strategic objectives. It guarantees you stay on top of what needs to be done today to ensure a strong foundation for the future.
Gone are the days that work can be handled as it comes in, or by going through a stack of paper files in alphabetical order. Employees have fuller plates than ever and need clear communication on how to balance their workload.
Priority can be a complex web comprised of some combination of time, money, and alignment with company goals. You want to handle high dollar value activities or activities with looming deadlines first, while taking into account that large volumes of smaller line items can add up and shouldn’t be ignored. There is always a balance to be had between taking care of today’s business while preparing for tomorrow, between strategic vision and your day-to-day “bread and butter” work.
Here are 4 steps to ensuring proper priority management
- Identify and articulate the company’s business priorities. As the landscape of HME changes due to competitive bidding, changing regulations and provider mergers and acquisitions, your company strategy may change as well. The vision for the company must be clearly understood by not just management but every employee, so they can adapt their behavior accordingly.
Taking that vision to a practical level, you need to identify and clearly communicate the most high value tasks that will help you achieve your goals. A common reality for most HME providers is that cash flow is king. If you receive a piece of paperwork that will allow you to release a claim, it should be prioritized. One day may mean the difference between being paid on a Friday or paid on a Monday – this might not make a huge difference for one claim, but when you are processing hundreds of them, these extra days can have a huge impact. The sooner you get claims processed you will know whether they are paid or denied, and you can take appropriate action, saving you from running up against timely filing deadlines.
- Recognize the role each employee plays in achieving your goals. Often the basic goals are easily understood - up front, you want to bring in as much potential revenue in the door as possible while making sure patients get what they need as soon as possible. And at the back end, you want to bring in as much money as possible and feel confident you have everything in place to retain what you have earned in the face of an audit. But, taking it a step further and recognize individual roles can be hugely helpful in securing success. When you take the time to ensure employees understand that their responsibility isn’t to cross off items from a to-do list, but rather to put effort into what will reap the most reward for the company and the population you serve, they are going to feel more empowered and make better decisions.
This is also an opportunity to understand the division of duties more clearly and make sure your workforce is organized appropriately. For example, you shouldn’t have the person responsible for high priority items answering the phones. Too many interruptions are the basis of a recipe for error.
- Leverage technology. A business process management (BPM) tool creates a central, visible resource for the prioritization of work. As work comes in, it is automatically ordered according to a set of criteria that you determine and program. It puts all of your work into a single spectrum and creates a clear hierarchy. Further, it will dispatch the work to the correct person, create alerts and escalations to ensure it’s worked timely, and gives you the visibility and access you need to make sure everything stays on track.
Using software to help with priority management removes any questions or arbitrary prioritization. It empowers employees to stay focused on the activities that will further your mission. It also gives you insight and control to make more informed decisions, reassign work as needed, and continue to improve your processes. The visibility a BPM tool gives you is unparalleled in enabling you to stay on top of your priorities, or adjust them on the fly.
- Monitor and refine. Business analytics and taking the time to analyze your processes can serve three main functions. It can help track progress and keep employees informed and motivated. Perhaps, for example, you track the number of claims submitted well in advance of deadlines and celebrate those victories. It also provides opportunity to identify what is and isn’t working well. You can identify areas that are bottlenecks or wasted/non-value effort and refine your processes to streamline operations. And finally, you should be able to see a clear correlation between the performance of your processes and the impact on your business goals. It can help you to reflect back on what the activities are truly having the greatest impact on your success, and make adjustments as necessary. Reporting on key performance metrics will continue to reinforce your efforts to ensure your entire organization is aligned behind your priorities.
Overall, the key to priority management is all about visibility. You have to be transparent about the priorities on a corporate level and how they are affected by effort on the front lines. You should communicate clearly to your employees and provide tools for them to stay on track. You must have a visible, central resource for employees and management to get on the same page about work prioritization. And you need to be forthcoming with progress to reinforce your communications and motivate employees.
Orignally published in HME Business. Follow this link to see the original: https://hme-business.com/articles/2016/03/21/priorities.aspx
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