Urgent!! To read in view of impending cash shortages in upcoming 2021 for rural hospitals
HomeTown’s Webinar Education Program led by Kristy Thomson, Sandy Sage, Dale Gibson, Stephanie Love to name a few (who have an incredible wealth of reimbursement knowledge among many other specialties) and the HTH production crew was conducting other HomeTown webinars in the last couple of weeks on Medicare and Medicaid and as the meeting went on the results of the meeting were becoming rather amazing and unbelievable. You need to know how impactful this education program is!
Do you know…??
- What percentage of your billers and claims processors are online for these webinars?
- How many of your billers and claims processors are certified through HomeTown Health University?
- Have you analyzed denial management as a result of being trained?
- So … what is the correlation in being trained and cash flow and A/R?
- Denial management is an absolute function of training and education.
- The difference between a 3% denial rate and a 4% denial rate on a $20,000,000 net revenue hospital is $200,000. That is a major part of a payroll!
Here are some of the statistics that define what the value really is to this HomeTown webinar educational program. Some statistics are as follows:
- HomeTown conducted more than 250 webinars in 2020.
- HomeTown is already on the way to producing are least that many webinars in 2021.
- Typical HomeTown webinar has over 100 attending sites with 130-150 attendees.
- Typical HomeTown webinar has:
- the most recognized subject matter specialists on reimbursement policy and procedures for both Medicare and Medicaid that can be found anywhere
- DCH and the four CMO’s attending to answer questions and make presentations
- Additionally United and Blue Cross Blue Shield attends periodically as well
- CMS and others have been known to attend as required
- All HomeTown webinars:
- have been recorded and are available with notes upon request to member users.
- have a webinar format that is very disciplined and well planned to prevent waste of attendees time.
- have a webinar format that is very interactive with questions being asked and answered online in the webinar – instant gratification.
- have a webinar format that relies heavily on on-screen presentations, e.g., PowerPoint, excel, word
- have a webinar retention rate which is of much importance in that it usually runs about 95% for webinars which means that for a one hour webinar with 100 attendees there are 95 still on the webinar when it finishes. That is major and is a testament to the quality of the program to hold these specialized attendees attention for that long.
- These HomeTown webinars are full scale TV productions using the latest webinar recording technology and platforms requiring producers, announcers, scripters, prompters, media technology experts, and the facilitation of and scheduling of 5-8 speakers for each webinar. That is a lot of production for a one hour webinar!
Why are these webinars so important?
- Reimbursement education is critical simply to get claims billed and denials worked in this ever constantly changing payment system where in many business offices they have up to 42 different insurer payment platforms to process claims through. Although the CAREs ACT money has been helpful in 2020 with the Pandemic it is believed that in the last six months of 2021, there is little subsidy cash or discretionary cash available, insurers are cutting rates, denials will again be soaring so Business Office efficiency is critical.
- Rural hospitals cannot afford for these key skill sets to be away from the work place because work not completed can mean the difference between making payroll or not.
- The simple cost of travel has gotten so exorbitant that should they travel to these webinars in the form of a seminar they could not afford it. While occasional webinars are important to keep the personal relationship between presenters and students current, the predominance of this education is now done on line.
- With so much turnover at all levels in hospitals, the need for ongoing timely relevant education is critical.
- There is no other consolidated source for this information simply because it has gotten so complex that few people know how to conduct a live webinar of this subject matter complexity.
- One question clarified can save a hospital tens of thousands of dollars.
- One question when asked that could be missed can save a hospital $100,000s
Is this webinar and online education for rural or the smallest hospitals only?
- Absolutely not in that the process, policy, and logic of payment is universal, i.e. applies equally to large and small.
- It must be good because some large hospitals are now taking advantage of the opportunity.
- This program is for HomeTown members and subscribers only who pay their dues to insure that it is financially sustainable.
Should CEO’s and CFO’s attend these webinars as well?
- Yes, because how else can a rural hospital CEO and CFO even understand what is happening in the operationally critical Business Office and Registration
- The amazing thing is that with so many hospitals attending there are still some hospitals that do not attend so they are missing information that would help them make payroll or payables. It makes no sense to not participate.
- With so much CEO and C-suite turnover, the first question that should be asked by anyone new is do we have good business office education because absent this, the turnover can get even greater because of the lack of payment recovery
- Each CEO and CFO should sit with and discuss the value of this program with each hospital Business Office Director to get a feel for just how important this program is.
How does this fit in with HomeTown Health University?
- HomeTown Health University is an online curriculum of over 1500 courses mostly business office, Patient Financial Services and compliance designed to train the student in the process, policy, and logic of payment such that the student can then become a very effective participant of the webinars and servant to the hospital financial needs.
- HomeTown Health University now has well over 19,000 students in 46 states and some internationally participating in all aspects of reimbursement , registration, compliance, and annual education.
- HomeTown Health University is accredited by IACET and offers certification upon certain levels of completion
- On-line HTHU Annual education??? Yes this program is phenomenal and allows hospitals to take advantage of professional education that does not have to be administrated by local staff whose skill set could be us elsewhere.
- When dealing with hospitals in financial crisis the first question to get asked is do they participate on the HTH webinars and HomeTown Health University. If the answer is “no” there is a good possibility the reason for problems is lack of education.
How does this fit in with HomeTown’s Strategic Planning and financial services program
- The regular interaction with so many hospitals gives HomeTown the very best assessment of the real time issues that will affect the strategy and tactics of a rural hospitals thus when HomeTown is called upon for operational assistance and guidance, it has the most current knowledge of what is happening and the solutions specialists that have been vetted among hospitals.
- Combine this with the several HomeTown policymaker trips last summer (and beginning again this summer of 2021 with Chairmen England, Hatchett, Houston, Black) covering some thirty hospitals HomeTown has the most complete assembly of knowledge to help rural hospitals available anywhere.
Did you know that…?
- The average webinar takes a minimum of 8 -10 person hours to prepare and at least three people to produce because each webinar is in fact a video production because they all are recorded.
- The average webinar lasts about 1 hour, then the attendee is back to work in the local hospital instead of consuming nearly 6 hours traveling to and from a seminar.
- An average of 100-120 sites in Georgia attend a HomeTown webinar that in turn equals nearly 130-150 attendees
- These webinars are attended by some of the most talented and skilled people in your hospital and in their field thus they are some of your most valuable and talented
- Absent this webinar technology and with the technical reimbursement changes of the last five years to reimbursement there would have been no way to educate your hospital people on this subject matter.
- Every major reimbursement player, i.e. insurance company, payer provider and state agency has continued to participate
- Webinar notes, handouts and resources are available alongside recordings via www.hthu.net or other support webpages.
- The information provided comes from local, state and national experts and is the most timely relevant information anywhere
- Again, in 2020 HomeTown produced over 250 webinars this year with combined attendance over 18,000 participants. Over 80 were global webinars on Medicaid, Medicare, and other specialized webinars and the others have been solution driven business partner webinars illustrating best demonstrated practices.
- The webinar presenters design each webinar to maximize the learning time of the attendee, thus each webinar has a planned announced agenda.
- An average webinar saves a typical rural hospital with 4 webinar participants about $1500 out of pocket costs per webinar and prevention of Revenue Billing Opportunity lost or $4500 per hospital with four attendees that would be lost by billers being away from job as well as strengthening the skill set of all involved.
- Thus the average participating hospital has saved over $350,000 through these webinars in 2020 alone and the HomeTown participation of over 50 rural hospitals has saved over $20 million in 2020 alone and more coming in 2021. In the nearly 15 years HomeTown has been doing this it has saved the member hospitals well over $150,000,000. That is the definition of value!!
- The claims level detail of one of these webinars can only be presented by subject matter experts as chosen by HomeTown which is what these presenters are.
- Artificial intelligence will demand online timely relevant answers and explanations for claims processing and algorithmic analysis of patient data.
- This exposure provides HomeTown with the most advanced and capable problem solvers anywhere.
- Big Data analytics is demanding a new level of claims processing mentality and capability.
- Turnover in rural hospital will approach 40% again in 2021 along with billers and revenue analysists while at the same time unemployment is at an all time low which means that a hospital is having major problem hiring and maintaining trained people . Thus this on-line education is the only way to keep up.
Do you know…??
- what percentage of your billers and claims processors are online for these webinars
- How many of your billers and claims processors are certified through HomeTown Health University
- Have you analyzed denial management as a result of being trained
- So … what is the correlation in being trained and cash flow and A/R.
- The difference between a 3% denial rate and a 4% denial rate on a $20,000,000 net revenue hospital is $200,000. That is a major part of a payroll