While you may think your busy occupational medicine practice (OccMed) is successful, how do you really know? Performance tracking isn’t only reserved to satisfy regulators, as it can make your work more satisfying and successful. KPIs may sound like marketing jargon or magic numbers, but physicians and managers can use them to improve day-to-day and long-term productivity.
Many companies, including those outside of medicine, use KPIs to see how they’re doing in comparison to the competition. Thus, KPIs vary by medical organization and specialty area. In occupational medicine, analyzing data is crucially important in functions of employee surveillance tracking and medical staff compliance, especially during outbreaks, such as COVID-19.
For an urgent care center or private practice delivering OccMed, here are some of the top performance metrics. A good electronic medical record (EMR) can generate reports on KPIs to help you meet the requirements of employers and workers. Are you making the best use of this data to help your practice more efficient and profitable?
Here are six key performance indicators (KPIs) to track how well your OccMed delivery is for your patients, staff, and the bottom line.
1. Time from initial visit to resolution of medical complaint
You may be well accustomed to ensuring patients experience relief from their medical complaint or injury efficiently. Patient throughput directly impacts satisfaction with care, and this is especially important in OccMed when both employees and employers cannot afford time off the job.
2. Ratio of new patients to follow-up visits
Workplace injuries may require follow-up, such as physical therapy. Tracking this information will help you determine whether aftercare is being over- or under-utilized. Your results may change because of trends in the types of injuries and illnesses that are treated. We want to see the trends quickly because they affect how we allocate resources like staff and equipment.
3. Charges for each new visit
The intensity of care and the cost of occupational health visits tend to be higher than those of typical urgent care visits. You want to make sure you are not under-charging for visits. Also, tracking charges by visit provides a window into trends that help determine financial decisions and where to put resources.
4. Reimbursement rates for new and follow-up visits
Changes in rates may be related to the mix of clients and the type of services our patients need. Having that information is necessary to ensure financial stability of an OccMed practice.
5. Ratio of visits for occupational health versus worker’s compensation
According to the Urgent Care Association, the ratio of occupational health to workers compensation should be 1.35 to 1. That is because work-related injuries and illnesses generally have a greater reimbursement rate. Understanding your patient mix will help you identify opportunities to engage employers.
6. Provider productivity
This is a huge factor in patient turnover and a number that management tracks, whether it be due to revenue generation or provider compensation.
Make Information your Ally
You’ll likely want to track more KPIs than the ones listed above. Choosing the right KPIs is one key to getting the most out of the insight they provide while also getting the most out of your time. To see the whole picture, it’s important to look at these indicators across practices in a given area, as well as at the individual practice level.
Another key to benefiting from data is to shift some of the administrative burden from your staff to your EMR software. Learn more about how Net Health for Occupational Medicine can help you measure the best KPIs for you.