CASE STUDY
Creating a Financially Sustainable Medical Service Line for a Multi-Specialty Behavioral Health Provider
CLIENT PROFILE
The largest behavioral health provider in a midwestern state delivering a vast array of mental health and support services and medical treatment through more than 20 office locations.
WHAT WE DID
The MMG team was engaged to provide solutions that would not only help the practice in the short-term but would also set them up for sustainable success moving forward.
THE OPPORTUNITY
In 2020, the institution experienced seven figure operating losses within its medical service line. Leadership suspected issues within areas including provider productivity, practice optimization, staffing, structure, and development but was uncertain of how to prioritize and execute improvement plans.
THE SOLUTION
Together with leadership of the organization, the medical service line and the medical providers, MMG conducted a needs assessment to identify the priorities, strengths, opportunities, and weaknesses of the group. The MMG team conducted site visits to the medical centers spread across 15 counties in the state, developing trust among the clinicians as well as mutually agreed upon goals and timelines.
MMG also partnered with financial leadership in the organization and analyzed the financial reports and data available for the medical service line, ensuring that accurate data was available to support strategic decision making.
The team at MMG developed and implemented a new management structure for the medical service line. With the input and support of the client’s leadership team, changes were implemented and fully executed leading to improvement in execution and more than $300,000 in cost savings.
Concurrently the MMG team developed and began deploying a restructured staffing matrix that would utilize medical assistants in conjunction with RNs and LPNs at appropriate staffing rations. This provided additional salary savings and created an environment where the RNs and LPNs were able to function at the top of their license, ultimately creating additional revenue opportunities around patient education.
Additionally, each provider was provided with clear, actionable production goals. This created a culture of accountability between the management team and the providers. In follow up to the production goals, MMG collaborated with the finance and HR teams to complete a return-on-investment analysis at the provider level that highlighted the greatest strengths and opportunities within the group. This became actionable data that provided a new direction in addressing financial sustainability for the service line.
Relevant KPIs were socialized and adopted relating to areas including schedule utilization, no show rates, and cancellation rates. These KPIs included both a prospective and a retrospective view for management and the providers to work with to enhance efficiencies within the medical group.
THE OUTCOME
The medical service line is reaping the benefits of a successful collaboration between organizational leadership and MMG’s operational experts, becoming a service delivery model that is financially stable and sustainable for the organization.
To date, the medical line has seen an increase in gross revenue, an increase in patient visits, a higher acuity of visits and a reduction in the largest expense category. The gross revenue for the medical group, volume of patient visits, and acuity have all increased materially over prior period results, with cost savings relating to staffing exceeding $500,000 annually.