MGMA launches practice benchmarking tool
Physicians interested in knowing how they and their practices compare to peers nationwide will soon have a new tool. The Medical Group Management Association in Englewood, CO, is joining up with Enterprise Health Links in Greenville, SC, to create Physcape, an Internet-accessed subscription service provider.
Physcape will begin offering a medical practice analysis and comparison tool called Performance MarkerMD this spring. It offers a way to track physicians’ charges and benchmark against similar practices, says Craig Forthman, president and CEO of the joint venture. Users can compare themselves to peer groups broken out by size, market demographics, or medical specialty. Data will be based on key elements of the standard Health Care Financing Administration 1500 claim forms used by practice management, billing, and accounting systems.
He says the system offers several modules. The first, PracticeProfiler, offers subscribers analysis of practice structure; comparative evaluation of performance measures including charges per provider and per encounter, number of procedures per encounter, and number of encounters per provider; comparison of performance measures within service lines and diagnostic categories compared to peers; and internal analysis of provider performance focusing on activity and charges per provider.
The second module, RevenueEnhancer, examines whether prices are in line with the work needed to deliver services and the efficiency in revenue generation compared to the resources required to generate that revenue. It should be available after PracticeProfiler goes on-line.
CostPerformer will allow users to determine which costs are direct or indirect, and separate fixed and variable expenses. MarginManager, the fourth module of the suite, is designed to help subscribers compare their profitability to those of other practices and identify the differences between more profitable and less profitable groups. These two modules will be available in the summer. The last part of PerformanceMarkerMD is A/R Trender, is due out in the fall and will provide views and trends within accounts receivable compared to other practices.
Users will upload information from existing computer systems into a secure database. Sub-scribers can then compare their data to other practices in the database. Ultimately, Forthman says that the system will allow users to profile physicians by number of relative value units (RVUs) produced and costs and revenues per RVU and per physician. If physician-specific utilization data are the interest, the system will allow that data derived from all patients in the practice, not just those of a particular health plan. Users also can examine outcomes and the productivity of billing staff based on the number of claims, the proportion of clean claims, and RVUs per biller.
The cost is about $15 per physician per month with a three year minimum subscription. Further information is available through the company Web site at www.physcape.com or by contacting Physcape at (800) 945-4490.
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