There are some universals when it comes to running any business that every owner understands. The beating heart of the business is revenue cycle. How does my cash come in? How am I paid? How does it go out? Where is it spent? Where are my dollars allocated? The second universal truth about business operations is that labor is one of the biggest drains on those finances.
And that’s where analytics comes in to tell you where the business currently stands and where it needs to go. In fact, studies show that enterprises that apply advanced analytics solutions have 33% more revenue growth and 12x more profit growth. Now admittedly, when you say analytics to most people, the word either puts them to sleep or doesn’t resonate because it has become almost a throwaway term since analytics seem to be everywhere. Even my kid’s cereal box has it!
But to people like you in the HME/DME industry who are trying to make the money needed to drive a business forward and who care about where your finances are coming from, analytics is incredibly important — and it’s automated so it’s always working for you so you can reduce the labor output typically assigned to your financial analysis.
Just the other day, I was talking to a provider organization that had 40 billers running Excel files to analyze the finances. And these Excel spreadsheets are still typical across the industry. But it’s also incredibly time-consuming, labor-intensive and delays your financial decisions about the business because you’re waiting for billers to provide you with that data.
If you’re looking for ways to move your business forward financially, make sure you’re asking yourselves these 4 questions.
I’ve seen a variety of ways that providers are still managing their financial data. Some are running QuickBooks, some are using Excel spreadsheets and others are farming it out to a third-party like an accountant. Some aren’t addressing it at all. There are some inherent risks and downsides with these models. What if there’s a mistake and I transpose a three and a four and now my DSO is out of whack? Or how in QuickBooks am I alerted if there’s a problem with my business? And am I even looking at the metrics that matter to my business? Can I do anything that’s predictive?
Some businesses have realized that there’s a better way to examine the opportunities and obstacles for their business and to make their days more efficient. I talked to a COO of a business the other day who sits at home and manually does ad hoc reporting for two hours every night. With analytics software to automatically handle that, businesses can get rid of the Excel files and paper and win back that time while becoming more streamlined. Plus, with advanced analytics solutions like ours at Brightree, there are pulse alerts that identify and notify you if there’s an issue in the business that needs to be addressed.
Most businesses that I’ve talked to can’t quantify how much time their billers are spending on ad hoc reporting. And this speaks to the bigger issue of how long this type of analysis is taking. On average, we’ve found that it takes four minutes for organizations to create an ad hoc report. But with our Brightree analytics solution, it drops to approximately 19 seconds.
On top of that, with a solid analytics software solution, you can quantify all the factors of your business, including employee productivity to see how long a task is taking, who’s doing the tasks and who your top producers are to expand on those best practices.
If you can’t quantify how much time you or your team spends running ad hocs, the broader question is what is the cost of ownership? Typically, questions like — what’s the cost to the business if the DSO flies off the handle, what’s the cost if we transpose a number, what’s the cost if we don’t have a single source of truth – are not examined because there are always other things that are top-of-mind.
However, when you have an analytics solution that keeps your data in one place, your cost of ownership goes down and your assurances go up because you’re able to easily access the trends and opportunities from this single source of truth.
Unfortunately, a lot of organizations aren’t aware of obstacles inside of their business until it’s much too late to make the necessary decisions. If you’re data isn’t speaking to you to make you aware of a problem, aware of an opportunity, aware of how much time something is taking, etc., keep in mind that there are tools liked advanced analytics that will tell you what you need to know about what’s happened in the past and even predict issues in the future so that you can fix them today.
Once you have the automated tools to see the full story your data is telling you, you can make smarter decisions for your business across the board to improve both your patient and business outcomes.
As a business, you’re constantly evaluating where you are, where you’re going and what you’re doing to be viable. Today’s advanced analytics solutions make it easier to get there.
Ready to tap into the insights and opportunities your data holds? Find out more at https://www.brightree.com/brightree-data-analytics/.
(Results may vary.)
Colin Murphy has worked at Brightree for 12 years in a variety of roles including sales training and previously spent over 20 years in medical sales and business management. Colin lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and two children.
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