Patient-Centered Care and What It Means for Healthcare Organizations

There is a trending topic that is currently the subject of much debate in healthcare circles around America: that of patient-centered care. Patient-centered care has been identified as one of the six key elements of high-quality care by the Institute of Medicine making it a topical conversation in healthcare circles. Increasingly, healthcare consulting companies such as CSuite Solutions are being asked to partner with healthcare systems to integrate this approach.

What is patient-centered care?

Patient-centered care, focuses on the specific health care needs and desired health outcomes of an individual and thus forms the driving force behind every health care decision that is made. Patients are seen to be partnering with their health care provider, and providers are committed to treating patients holistically: offering clinical care, as well as emotional, spiritual, mental, financial and social support.

What are the benefits for healthcare organizations?

There are a number of benefits to healthcare organizations that are willing to make the transition to a patient-centric approach including lowered costs, the opportunity to grow market share as well as improving patient outcomes.

Lowering costs cited as one big benefit of a patient-centric approach

A study by UC Davis found that patient-centered care leads to lower healthcare costs. The collaborative approach between patient and physician results in improved confidence in the diagnosis which reduces, and in some cases eliminates, costly tests and specialist referrals.

Healthcare Providers can gain market share

As patients in the US are becoming better informed of patient-centered care, this offers the opportunity for a competitive advantage for healthcare systems. Patients are choosing to seek out hospitals and providers that actively promote this approach with a study showing that 40% of respondents would switch to a hospital that was more patient-centered.

Improved Patient Outcomes

A patient-centered approach has repeatedly been proven to be the most effective at improving patient health outcomes. By engaging patients and their families, there is a positive impact on emotional health, symptom resolution, and pain control. Additionally, through engagement and education in partnership with the patient and their family, this approach can help reduce the rate of preventable readmissions.

What changes do health systems need to make?

The way that care is delivered has to shift fundamentally which requires a re-working of several key areas. First, the organization’s mission, vision, values, and leadership need to change to align with patient-centered goals. Secondly, the way that care is provided needs to focus on physical comfort, as well as emotional well-being and the approach to care, needs to be collaborative and accessible. And thirdly, patient and family preferences and participation need to be respected and encouraged.

 

What is the next step for healthcare organizations?

There are a number of challenges to overcome in moving towards a patient-centric approach. CSuite Solutions in Tampa, Florida, is a national strategic advisory that offers healthcare management services and healthcare consulting. Founded by former health system CEOs and C-Level executives with a wide range of health-specific expertise, they are expertly positioned to help healthcare organizations transition to a patient-centric approach.

The following post Patient-Centered Care and What It Means for Healthcare Organizations was first published to is republished from CSuite Solutions. Find more on:} www.csuitesolutions.com Patient-Centered Care and What It Means for Healthcare Organizations.

Patient-Centered Care and What It Means for Healthcare Organizations posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: A Future-Centric Approach

Today’s Health Systems Can Leverage CSuite Solutions’ Considerable Experience to Optimize Its Revenue Cycle Platform

Effective revenue cycle management is one major key to future-proofing healthcare systems in America and is going to require some hard choices and the adoption of new perspectives. Chief among those is a shift in thinking, moving from the view that it is a process, to seeing revenue cycle management as a key organizational asset and developing strategies to maximize that asset.

Brian Paradis, senior partner at CSuite Solutions in Tampa, Florida, is a recognized expert in healthcare revenue cycle management having served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Florida Hospital’s Central Region and as the Chief Financial Officer for the Florida Division of Adventist Health Systems. In a recent article, he noted that “health systems are in a hurry to prepare by making meaningful investments for the future. The challenge is to figure out where to allocate resources to produce the best return.”

As a solution, he proposes that the key to any health care system’s financial strength and resilience should be investment into the optimization of revenue cycles. The turbulent nature of healthcare in the US calls for a new approach to managing revenue cycles with the perspective that it is more than a process and should instead be viewed as a strategic asset.

Revenue cycle management has traditionally been defined as the process that healthcare systems in the United States use to track revenue from patients. The process is initiated when the patient first makes an appointment or enters the healthcare system and ends when all outstanding fees have been settled.

The problems inherent in revenue cycle management have long been a subject of intense debate in healthcare circles, and it is this narrow definition that CSuite Solutions is disrupting. Because effective management of revenue is vital to the continued operation of healthcare organizations, it is imperative that a broader definition be adopted, one that looks at engagement with the broader organization, identifies niche service and technologies, focuses on the development of referral retention strategies and is open to experimentation that may offer profit maximization solutions.

The idea of developing existing niche services and technologies is one that is particularly promising, particularly in the light of statistics that show that one in five working-age Americans struggles to pay their healthcare bills. New data-driven technologies are available that provide access to patient information that has not been available in the past. Organizations have the opportunity to improve workflows, access additional information and reduce the cost of collections and successful implementation has the potential to change the business of health care radically.

Some of these new technologies include the replacement of outdated accounts receivable methodologies that typically write off bad debts after exhausting the internal collection process. With the development of sophisticated databases and algorithms, this process can be shifted to addressing zero-based accounts and using technology to identify whether outstanding accounts should be handled internally or outsourced to a collections agency.

As CSuite Managing Partner, Stephen R. Mason notes, “we see our role as partnering with over-burdened healthcare providers; coming in with a fresh pair of eyes, a unique perspective, a different approach, and many years of experience in different C-level roles in healthcare. This unique perspective allows us to identify and target important areas for growth that might otherwise have been overlooked.”

Brian Paradis is a senior partner at CSuite Solutions, a strategic advisory firm serving health system leaders across the U.S. Most recently, Paradis served as President of Florida Hospital’s Central Region and as the Chief Financial Officer for the Florida Division of Adventist Health Systems. Look for Brian's book "Lead with Imagination" coming in February 2019 where he shares his experience and insights on how healthcare leaders can regain the power to lead and live life in a changing world by using Imaginative Leadership.

***

CSuite Solutions, LLC was founded by an elite group of former healthcare system CEOs and C-Level executives in response to a growing need for fresh solutions and new strategic insights into issues faced by healthcare systems. The national strategic advisory firm works alongside industry leaders to offer healthcare consulting, healthcare revenue cycle management and advise on clinical integration and patient-centered care.

CSuite Solutions
4830 W Kennedy Blvd # 600
Tampa, FL 33609
(813) 866-5100

The following article Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: A Future-Centric Approach was originally published on is republished from CSuite Solutions. See more on:} CSuite Solutions Health Care Consulting Blog Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: A Future-Centric Approach.

Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: A Future-Centric Approach posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

Provider Sponsored Health Plans Have a Bright Future in US Health Systems

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tampa, Florida -- CSuite Solutions, headquartered in Tampa Florida, is well-known for its partnership team of qualified C-level practitioners that deliver healthcare management advisory services to health systems and healthcare providers throughout the US. In response to the ever-growing need for a well-constructed Provider-Sponsored Health Plan option, CSuite Solutions has expanded its services to better cater to the growing needs of the provider-sponsored health plan niche with it’s launch of Direct to Employer.

Direct to Employer is a provider-sponsored, non-insurance health plan program that has been designed for healthcare systems and hospitals (Providers) to offer to the provider’s employees along with area employers to offer to their employees as well.

“In the current climate, outpatient centers, hospitals, and physician groups (Healthcare Providers or providers), are rewarded mostly for the treatment of illnesses rather than their dedication to preserving and maintaining healthy individuals. This climate creates a system where administering treatments and receiving the revenue is a powerful incentive for practitioners, undermining the ethos of prevention being better than cure,” says Brian Paradis, Senior Partner with CSuite Solutions and former COO of Florida Hospital’s Center Region.

For quite some time now, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)and health providers have lacked the expertise and experience needed to help construct, deploy, grow and manage self funded health plans effectively and in ways that positively affect the bottom line and result in a successful “volume to value” paradigm shift.

Identifying the need for a specialized expertise, CSuite Solutions is now offering Health Providers the assistance they need to power provider-sponsored, self-funded insurance plans for the providers’ own employees along with offering the new PSP health plan to other area employers, especially the smaller employers with 2-50 employees who have significant challenges in offering affordable health care options to their employees.

The new program, called “Direct to Employer” (DTE), was designed by providers for providers. This proprietary self-funded plan allows the healthcare provider direct access to employee groups, patients, and the other populations within their communities, creating a better pathway for managing the health of these individuals. Providers are incentivized with rewards for reducing health care costs and creating savings through the application of patented population health protocols while working alongside area employers and other public and private institutions including local health centers of excellence.

Self-funded health insurance, also referred to as self funded health plans, have long been up for discussion by experienced population health advisors and employers in the United States. While large health systems have expressed their interest in self funded health plans, most remain unaware of the significant upside opportunity for the Healthcare Provider along with the complexities involved in successful deployment and operation of a provider sponsored plan.

In the past, most employers preferred offering their employees fully insured health plans and paid monthly dues to their insurance provider to cover medical claims and costs tied to administering claims filed under the plan. Self funded healthcare plans represent an arrangement where the Health Provider offers employees health and disability benefits using the providers own private funds but also adding a layer of re-insurance or stop loss insurance to minimize and cap potential losses.

With costs for health insurance rising at exponential rates, volume based healthcare and fully-funded insurance plans have made it difficult for health providers and local businesses to offer quality healthcare to their workforce without compromising cost efficiency.

“For ACOs and large health systems in particular, self-funded plans promise a higher level of flexibility, more room for data-driven, population health initiatives and cost-saving benefits,” notes Stewart Schaffer, Managing Partner at CSuite Solutions. Unlike traditional insurance plans, these plans can be designed to address the specific needs of a Healthcare System and the local community employers and its employees. This customization can include focusing more on mental health for companies where employees tend to spend long hours at work and identifying high-risk employees early on in the process to avoid loss of work due to illness and the higher costs of managing an employee (patient) with more serious illnesses.

According to Stephen Mason, Managing Partner at CSuite Solutions and former CEO of BayCare Health System in Tampa, Florida, “The DTE program aims to reduce the speed to market for insurance coverage by providing guidance and a pathway to implementation in six to eight months versus a typical twelve to eighteen-month to two-year implementation timeline for a standard self-funded insurance plan. Speed is not the only benefit, as this program also offers providers the opportunity to negotiate in a ‘free-market’ manner with employers, cutting out the expensive insurance ‘middle man.The cost of entry is as low as $250,000 to $450,000, a huge difference when typical self-funded insurance plans often start at $2 million, sometimes even more.”

Jointly operated by Key Benefit Administrators (KBA) and CSuite Solutions, DTE is managed and administered by some of the top leadership in healthcare systems and third-party administrators (TPAs) in the world. CSuite Solutions alone brings over 200 years worth of combined experience through its partners, who have had great success in clinical integration, network development, provider-based insurance, revenue cycle optimization, volume to value transitions and accountable care organizations. One of the largest non-insurance TPAs in the U.S., KBA has a track record of 30 years when it comes to reducing costs associated with healthcare.

CSUITE and KBA are offering Providers the unprecedented ability to disrupt the current payors and market health plans directly to employers without the participation of an insurance company. The combined knowledge, experience and leadership of these companies provides healthcare systems with a comprehensive, inexpensive solution to get to market quickly, manage revenue cycles efficiently and make and sustain profits.

CSuite Solutions, LLC
4830 W Kennedy Blvd # 600
Tampa, FL 33609
(813) 866-5100
Website: https://csuitesolutions.com/
GMB: https://goo.gl/maps/aUB282zEjQL2

The next information Provider Sponsored Health Plans Have a Bright Future in US Health Systems was originally seen on is courtesy of CSuite Solutions. Find more on:} CSuite Solutions Blog Provider Sponsored Health Plans Have a Bright Future in US Health Systems.

Provider Sponsored Health Plans Have a Bright Future in US Health Systems posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

Simplifying healthcare: It’s about time

By Brian Paradis, Senior Partner The healthcare industry has been described as “the most complex endeavor on the planet.” It is hard to say this definitively, but there is certainly an element of truth to the sentiment. As professionals who work in the industry – and as patients who consume its services – we have

The following blog post Simplifying healthcare: It’s about time was originally published to is courtesy of CSuite Solutions. See more on:} http://www.csuitesolutions.com/ Simplifying healthcare: It’s about time.

Simplifying healthcare: It’s about time posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

Former Healthcare COO Brian Paradis Inspiring Imaginative Leadership With Peers

Former Healthcare executive, Brian Paradis, hopes to inspire imaginative leadership amongst his colleagues and peers at the helm of America’s health systems.

The next post Former Healthcare COO Brian Paradis Inspiring Imaginative Leadership With Peers was originally published on is courtesy of CSuite Solutions. See more on: CSuite Solutions Former Healthcare COO Brian Paradis Inspiring Imaginative Leadership With Peers

Former Healthcare COO Brian Paradis Inspiring Imaginative Leadership With Peers posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

New Direct to Employer Solution for Provider-Sponsored Health Plans Emerges

The number of provider-sponsored health plans (PSPs) is strongly on the rise in the United States giving way to a direct to employer (DTE) solution for health care plans. According to Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC), 50 percent of U.S. health systems have applied, or will apply, for an insurance license. PSPs have many assets they

The following article New Direct to Employer Solution for Provider-Sponsored Health Plans Emerges was originally seen on is courtesy of CSuite Solutions. Find more on: CSuite Solutions Consulting Blog New Direct to Employer Solution for Provider-Sponsored Health Plans Emerges

New Direct to Employer Solution for Provider-Sponsored Health Plans Emerges posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com

Solving the Direct-to-Employer Model for Self-Funded Health Plans

CSuite Solutions (CSUITE) in partnership with Key Benefit Administrators (KBA) recently announced the availability of a new provider-sponsored, self-funded healthcare program that was created just for healthcare systems and hospitals to level the playing field with the payors. CSUITE is a healthcare consultancy comprised of former health system provider Presidents and CEOs who are well-known

The next information Solving the Direct-to-Employer Model for Self-Funded Health Plans was originally seen on is courtesy of CSuite Solutions. Read more on: CSuite Solutions Consulting Blog Solving the Direct-to-Employer Model for Self-Funded Health Plans

Solving the Direct-to-Employer Model for Self-Funded Health Plans posted first on http://csuitesolutions.blogspot.com