10 Tips for ASCs to Better Leverage KPIs and Benchmarking

Follow these 10 tips to help your ASC more effectively leverage the KPIs you track and benchmark.

How do you know if your ambulatory surgery center's business is doing well? Not just think you know, but how do you really know? That's where data comes in. Only by collecting appropriate data on key performance indicators (KPI) and then measuring your performance can you paint an accurate picture of your ASC's revenue cycle success (or lack thereof).

ASC Key Performance Indicator Best Practices

1. Aim high when establishing KPI goals

When setting goals for KPIs and benchmarking performance, it's best to be realistic about achievable goals. With that said, you should strive for the high end of what you believe is possible for your ASC. Just be careful not to set unrealistic goals - or goals perceived as unrealistic - as this can alienate team members. You want your staff to believe in your goals so they will buy into efforts to achieve them.

2. Learn from others, but focus on your needs

You can find a lot of information about surgery center KPIs and benchmarking online, and even more is shared during conferences and webinars. This information can provide recommendations concerning everything from how you should analyze data and establish goals to how you should measure and monitor performance. The information may also highlight revenue cycle areas to focus on for improvement.

While these resources can help improve revenue cycle performance, it's important that the efforts you ultimately undertake speak to your ASC's specific needs. For example, your surgery center may already do well with patient collections but could benefit from efforts to improve days in accounts receivable (A/R) over 90.

3. Get into the weeds

Once you have identified the areas where you should focus improvement efforts, it is very important to "get into the weeds" of your data. After all, to use another phrase, "The devil is in the details."

By taking a deep dive into your data and performance, you will put yourself in a better position to determine why a metric is not where you want it to be and the contributing factor(s). While this can take a fair amount of work, it will help ensure your time and energy is better allocated.

4. Lean on staff for insight

As part of getting in the weeds, speak with your business office staff about their experiences, including what problems they may have noticed and the opportunities for improvement they think exist. Staff are often in the best position to tell you what is and is not working with your revenue cycle and what should and should not happen to address issues.

5. Challenge your ASC's team

An often-effective way of bringing about improvement is by encouraging surgery center staff to help tackle a problem. This may entail challenging them to step outside the comfort zone of their daily work routine. For example, you might have an A/R specialist who has expressed an interest in credit balances. If credit balances become an area you want to target, this specialist may be a great person to involve in the effort.

You should also challenge staff to take a more active role in moving your key performance indicators in the right direction. Doing so may entail assigning staff small projects, such as performing a data analysis to determine why a metric is not where you want it.

6. Support your surgery center staff

If you find that a KPI is going in the wrong direction, or you benchmark your results against external entities and learn your performance is not where you feel it should be, this does not necessarily indicate that you have a problem with your staff. Rather, it might mean you have an opportunity.

Suboptimal ASC KPI performance often indicates the need for staff to receive additional education. Ask your surgery center software vendor if it provides training that can help staff better use its solutions. In addition, as noted, there is a lot of education available concerning the ASC revenue cycle that you may want to share with staff. It may even be worthwhile to send team members to a conference or allocate time for participation in revenue cycle webinars.

Revenue cycle staff fill positions that are typically dynamic. They tend to experience frequent changes thanks to ever-changing rules and regulations. Continuing education is very important to ensuring staff can adequately fulfill their job responsibilities on an ongoing basis.

Unsure where staff may be struggling? Ask them. They will often be able to tell you where they require assistance.

7. Don't be afraid of a little friendly competition

Competition is a part of our culture. In an ASC's business office, it can be an effective means of motivating staff. For example, let's say your ASC has multiple people focused on credit balances. Set a goal for these team members.

For everyone who achieves that goal, recognize them in some manner, such as providing a small prize (e.g., $5 gift card). For the individual who performs best, award them with a bigger prize (e.g., $25 gift card).

The opportunity to earn a prize will help drive performance. If staff know they are competing against one another for a bigger reward, that may help give them an even greater push to succeed.

8. Hold staff accountable

If staff performance is subpar - and you determine it's not because of lack of training or education - it is important to make it clear that there will be ramifications if performance does not improve.

Set reasonable, measurable goals. If staff fail to meet them, they may try to come up with excuses, including questioning how you measured their performance.

That's where having data is key. When you can show that someone is doing a poor job compared to another team member or industry standard and have the numbers to back that up, it's easier to dismiss excuses. Then you must hold staff accountable, following through on the ramifications you noted and doing so consistently. Any wavering will establish a bad precedent and can give the impression that what you say and what you do are different.

9. Never assume a change will work

Just because you believe or expect that a change will deliver the KPI improvement you expect does not mean it will happen. Gather data, identify a problem, and implement solutions. Then go back and monitor that same data again to determine whether what you set out to accomplish was accomplished. If it was, share this positive news with your staff.

Note: While changes are important for improving performance, avoid making a change just for the sake of change. If staff believe that's happening, they are less likely to buy in when you need to execute a meaningful change.

10. Don't settle for an average ASC revenue cycle

Can you run a solvent ASC with an average-performing revenue cycle? It's becoming increasingly difficult to do so, but even if you can, why would you just want to be average when you know you can be better? At the beginning of this column, we talked about the importance of aiming high. That means above average.

Set KPI and benchmarking goals that will help elevate your ASC's performance to a level that will allow you to tell and show - through data - your governing board that you have a strong revenue cycle they should be proud of. Then aim even higher. Being well above average may be in reach.

Improve Your ASC's Financial Performance With SIS Revenue Cycle Services

Unhappy with your ambulatory surgery center's financial performance? Building a new ASC and don't want the stress of managing the revenue cycle? Turn to the ASC revenue cycle experts at Surgical Information Systems (SIS). With SIS Revenue Cycle Services (RCS), you will receive the services and support from expert ASC billing professionals, supported by advanced technology, who will deliver an optimized surgery center revenue cycle performance. How do we do it? Schedule a meeting with a SIS RCS expert today!

Share with a colleague: