It's a safe bet that claims will not have a happy ending if the treating physician has a history of being associated with poor claim outcomes. In fact, physicians rated poorly in analytic studies based on past performance are 100% predictive of high costs and inferior outcomes in future claims where they are involved. The question is, how can those providers be identified so they can be avoided?
Applying Analytics
Whether the cause of poor performance is misunderstanding Workers' Compensation or deliberate fraud, the claim results will be dismal. Nevertheless, in order to analyze provider performance, one must know where to find the data, what to look for, and how to apply the knowledge gained from analysis to achieve improved results.
Data can offer a clear picture of actual provider performance. Evaluating physician and other provider performance is a matter of scrutinizing the data using industry research to learn what to look for. In fact, leveraging published industry research is the way to skip the laborious and expensive regression analyses and other predictive modeling methods.
Industry Research Reveals What To Look For
Exposing substandard providers is a matter of integrating and analyzing the data to understand the course of the claim and the providers who were involved. Selecting the data items to monitor can be guided in the first instance by industry research. Organizations such as the National Council on Compensation Insurance, the California Workers' Compensation Institute, and the Workers' Compensation Research Institute continually publish their research based on data they collect from members. These organizations offer research regarding medical issues causing cost escalation in the industry, and usually make results available from their individual websites.
Search
Academia and other organizations produce and publish research, as well. The best way to access other research is to use Google or other search engines to find research studies regarding specific issues and interest areas. For instance, if the concern is low back pain, simply use Google to find research and scholarly articles on the topic as it relates to Workers' Compensation.
Indicators Of Performance
When the indicators of performance are identified, they can be tagged in the data to analyze individual providers. Providers associated with a preponderance of negative indicators will fall into the lowest class category. On the other hand, those whose results are exemplary will rise to the top — best in class.
Where To Find The Data
Billing data tells the story of diagnoses, treatments and the billed amounts. However, billing data by itself is never broad enough in scope to evaluate providers because it tells only a part of the story. Claim adjudication level data tells another part of the story. It describes the actual paid amounts, return to work, the amount of indemnity paid, and whether legal was involved. But there is more.
Analyzing Pharmacy Benefit Management data is imperative. Overuse of prescribed narcotic pain relievers is now a major concern in Workers' Compensation medical management. Prescribing excessive opioids is unconscionable, but the guilty are often not identified and avoided as they could and should be.
Provider performance should be scored by claim outcome combined with costs and other factors. Unless the initial injury was catastrophic, return to work following a workplace injury is often a function of medical management that should be measured. Analyzing multiple data indicators from disparate data sources is powerful in describing physician performance. It is also objective and fair.
Integrating The Data For Analysis
Any one Workers' Compensation data source by itself is inadequate for the purpose of evaluating provider influence. Only the broad scope of data concerning a claim can provide a clear picture of the claim and provider culpability in outcome. Therefore, collecting the data from its various sources (billing or bill review, claim adjudication systems, and pharmacy data), then integrating current and historical data are crucial steps in provider performance analytics. The next steps are identifying, evaluating, and monitoring the data elements that are indicators of performance both from the medical and Workers' Compensation viewpoints using research as a guide.
Link Analytics To Operations
Analytics results of any variety that remain in graphic form, in a brochure, or pinned to a wall are useless in the effort of actually containing costs. The findings must be functionally applied to operations to make them actionable. Information regarding best (and worst) in class doctors identified through the methods discussed here must be made available to network managers and others in a usable form. Moreover, the information should be specific, current, dynamic, easily accessible, and contain objective supportive detail. The work of analytics is not complete until its results are operationalized and actionable.
