C-suite execs responding to the Advisory Board’s Annual Health Care CEO Survey said healthcare revenue growth was their top priority for 2019. This is a departure from last year’s results which focused on implementing sustainable cost control initiatives as the top concern.
While still important, “innovative approaches to expense reduction” fell to number five among survey respondents’ priorities this year. Leaders appear to be shifting their focus to building upstream services. The four interest areas that scored higher each provide evidence that C-suite executives recognize the need to align healthcare business with consumer demand in order to grow revenue. The top four interests include:
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Improving ambulatory access (57 percent)
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Strengthening primary care alignment (53 percent)
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Minimizing unwarranted clinical variation (53 percent)
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Redesigning health system services for population health (52 percent)
A recent RevCycle Intelligence article reporting on the survey points out, “Bolstering upstream services is becoming increasingly important as traditional healthcare organizations (e.g., hospitals and health systems) transition to value-based care, which disincentivizes providers from filling inpatient beds and rewards those who keep patients healthy outside of the hospital. Maximizing performance-based revenue hinges on less expensive primary care and outpatient services.”
That thinking helps explain why “improving ambulatory access” ranked as the top interest area for C-suite executives in 2019, rising from eighth place in 2018. According to the RevCycle article, “executives plan to focus on adjusting facilities, staffing, or hours of operation to enhance the patient’s ability to receive care across more convenient locations, such as an outpatient facility, physician office, or clinic.”
Chris Stine, Regent Surgical Health’s Corporate Compliance Officer and Director of Bundled Payments, agrees that improving ambulatory access is an important strategy for revenue growth. In fact, Regent’s free eBook outlines a relationship between cost control and revenue growth. For ambulatory surgery centers that effectively manage expenses, the bundled payment model has potential to drive patient volume.
Tied for second among executives surveyed, “strengthening primary care alignment” suggests a link between healthcare revenue growth and ambulatory strategy. As explained by advisory Board researchers, “Strengthening primary care alignment means improving the hospital-physician partnership to enable mutual success under different payment and care-delivery models. And redesigning health systems for population health refers to making organizational, facility, process and technology changes to support care and payment models that promote improvement in patient outcomes rather than care volume.”
C-Suite execs know that alignment changes are a necessity in an ever-changing economic landscape. Those that adapt thrive, and those the stay the same perish. Click here to learn more.
For more information about the impact of a robust ambulatory strategy on healthcare revenue growth, contact Regent’s Chris Stine here.
