Award-winning Discovery employee proves that small acts of accountability make a big impact

June 30, 2020 Discovery Health Partners
Award-winning Discovery employee proves that small acts of accountability make a big impact

When a company sets hefty goals to deliver profound client value and create highly engaged employees, it’s not enough to communicate those goals to everyone. To be transformational, every single employee must be 100% committed to contributing to the company’s goals. 

Discovery has invested in a comprehensive accountability model based on the concept that when people take personal ownership of the company’s goals and accept responsibility for their own performance, they work at a higher level to ensure their own success AND the company’s overall success. 

Working with the culture management firm Partners in Leadership, Discovery has built a culture of accountability by sponsoring training workshops and holding weekly small-group huddles that let employees work on the four best practices of accountability—recognizing when there are gaps in execution, fully and personally owning responsibilities and aligning them to the company’s key results, creatively and collaboratively working on solutions, and actively executing on the solution while building an environment of trust.

“As I like to say, accountability is every Discovery employee’s best friend,” says Phil Garrison, VP of Human Resources at Discovery and the executive sponsor of the company’s accountability program. “For each of us at Discovery, the principles of accountability give us easy-to-use tools to improve our individual work performance, share honest feedback with each other, and contribute very directly to the company’s overall goals.  The concepts are so foundational, they can even benefit us in our personal relationships.”

Discovery has integrated the model into many aspects of the company’s processes, onboarding, and expectations, and accountability is a cornerstone of the company’s culture. The company’s new Accountability in Action award is one example.

Each quarter, this award recognizes Discovery employees who demonstrate they have a stake in the company and go above and beyond to contribute to the company’s key results by living the “what else can I do?” attitude.

The first-ever recipient of Discovery’s new Accountability in Action award is Beverly Orwig, an MSP Recovery Specialist who has been with Discovery less than a year. 

Beverly received the award—which includes a cash reward, an extra day off with pay, and other perks—for a small gesture done consistently at a challenging time for her team. When COVID-19 hit, Beverly recognized that the pandemic was causing a lot of stress for her coworkers and they were struggling to keep a positive mindset. She asked herself what else she could do to stand out, to make a difference. Beverly took it upon herself to start each morning by posting a positive message to motivate her team, help them push through the challenges, and hit their goals. Focusing on how the team was reacting to the new environment caused by COVID-19, Beverly knew that it can be very hard for people to stay engaged, stay aligned to company goals, and maintain a connection with the team. Beverly’s positive communication among the team members promoted the understanding that the team had the ability and would be able overcome obstacles.

Commenting on receiving the award, Beverly says, “I was beaming—winning made such an impact on me! It made me realize that one individual employee can make such a big difference in the company. This company empowers me every day. It’s what makes Discovery who we are—everyone pushing each other to continue the momentum, to move forward in the same direction.”

Beverly credits her supervisor Shawn Daniels with inspiring her and driving her motivation. “I never want to disappoint him,” Beverly explains. “When he sets a goal for me, well, I’m going to push to overachieve that goal. He takes a personal interest in me and my success and is consistently available to help me.”

Beverly feels she is succeeding at Discovery because of the tools and transparency that the company provides. “Discovery gives me all the tools I need and empowers me to do my job every day,” she says. If I don’t know something, there’s transparent management all the way up to the top to get questions answered. It doesn’t get better than that.” 

“I want to be here…I want to come here every day. How many people can say that? I love coming to work every day.”

When she’s not demonstrating accountability at work, Beverly is a murder-mystery bookworm; enjoys Blues, jazz, and swing music; and spends weekends baking and cooking great dishes.

Discovery has built a culture of accountability throughout the company and created a quarterly award to recognize employees that have a stake in the company and go above and beyond by living the “what else can I do?” attitude.

Congratulations to Q1 2020 Accountability in Action award runners-up!

Christine Garcia, Accountability in Action award runner-up
“Christine works to get the issues fixed rather than come up with temporary solutions. She is in constant contact and responds within minutes, often working late to make sure issues are resolved.”
“Chad identified ways that Discovery’s platform could better support the business. He immediately took ownership and spearheaded the development of an app in record time—in addition to his day job.”

If you’d like to learn more about the steps to accountability and building this kind of culture at your organization, we recommend the book The Oz Principle.

Discovery Health PartnersAward-winning Discovery employee proves that small acts of accountability make a big impact
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Industry voices—ensuring premium revenue accuracy during COVID-19

May 11, 2020 Jeffrey Martin
Industry voices—ensuring premium revenue accuracy during COVID-19

FierceHealthPayer features an article by Jeff Martin, Vice President of Eligibility Operations at Discovery Health Partners. The article highlights the importance of making sure MA plans receive the revenue they deserve in order to ensure a stable financial picture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here to read the full article.

Jeffrey MartinIndustry voices—ensuring premium revenue accuracy during COVID-19
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Protecting payment integrity through client-centered support

April 21, 2020 Monica Frederick
Protecting payment integrity through client-centered support

Unexpected events like the COVID-19 pandemic make it increasingly difficult for health plans to manage costs and ensure payment integrity. We recently sat down with Monica Frederick, Vice President, Account Management for Discovery Health Partners, to discuss how Discovery’s people and account management approach contribute to our clients’ success.

You’re a newer member of the Discovery Account Management Team. Can you share your experience prior to Discovery?

Over the past 20 years, I’ve held numerous sales and business development positions to support healthcare organizations in bringing new patient care modalities to the market. My experience on the medical side gives me insight into how managed care organizations can strengthen their payment integrity efforts so they can better manage costs and continue to focus on member care.

What makes Discovery a successful team and what are we doing differently to support our clients’ success?

Discovery has built a solid reputation for providing value to health plans by helping to solve their payment integrity challenges. We owe our success to our exceptional people and culture of accountability. Every employee across the organization understands the importance of their role and how they contribute to our clients’ success. And I see the whole organization working tirelessly to anticipate customers’ needs and earn their trust.

Communication is a big part of our approach to account management at Discovery. We talk to clients frequently in person and virtually, and we also conduct client surveys to hear directly from our clients on how we’re doing and how we can continue to provide profound value to our clients’ organizations.

Through this hands-on approach, we’ve learned that we do many things right. Clients especially appreciate how we advise them to determine the best course of action for their operations and provide timely follow-up to address their concerns. This valuable feedback also helps us identify opportunities where we can improve our processes and solutions to better meet clients’ needs.

In addition, we have a Client Council that brings together individuals across our client base whose voices influence the future of our business. We host in-person and virtual meetings with our Client Council to deepen relationships and understand what clients need to be successful. These meetings not only provide clients with valuable networking opportunities, but also offers clients opportunities to share insights and best practices with other health plan leaders and drive future innovations.

What is Discovery’s approach to account management, and how do we drive value throughout the entire engagement with a client?

Our approach is flexible to meet each client’s unique needs, but it always starts with earning their trust, by getting to know them and understanding their business operations. We listen closely to their concerns and create a plan that addresses their challenges and aligns with their strategy and priorities.

When clients join Discovery, we put together an implementation team with the right skills and specific expertise to ensure a smooth, accurate, and efficient implementation. Our approach is flexible and can wrap around or come behind existing vendors and processes already in place. Discovery’s multi-disciplinary teams work collaboratively and our experts evaluate each client individually. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Once implementation is completed, an internal hand-off to the Account Management team occurs and all unique attributes and needs for each client are discussed in detail. A dedicated account manager takes the lead to provide guidance and manage day-to-day activities and communicate the status of ongoing projects every step of the way. We don’t just hand over reports; we take time to meet regularly with clients to review their information in a way that’s meaningful so we can make recommendations for improvements and achieve their desired results.

What are some of the ways Discovery helps health plans address unexpected payment integrity challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic?

COVID-19 is unlike any event the healthcare industry has seen in modern times, thus health plans are faced with challenges they could not have imagined just a few months ago. Not only do health plans need to ensure their members receive the care they need and support their providers, health plans must also keep up with individual states’ mandates regarding “non-essential” claims processes and review of COVID-19 related claims. At the same time, they are struggling with reallocating resources to support critical COVID-19 initiatives while managing the shift to a remote workforce.

Discovery is proactively reaching out to clients to make recommendations, based on their business, to help protect premium revenue, pick up productivity shortfalls as needed, and help them protect their workforce. We continue to work diligently on behalf of clients as an extension of their teams to ensure they get the right information to support the continuity of their operations.

Discovery went remote with payment integrity operations over a year ago, so we’re in a great position to help support our clients business during the pandemic. Discovery views challenges as an opportunity to learn from individual clients’ needs. As COVID-19 plays out, we will continue to partner with clients to make sure we are supporting them and their challenges are addressed in a timely manner.

 

Find out how Discovery Health Partners can help contribute to your payment integrity success in 2020. Contact us today!

Monica FrederickProtecting payment integrity through client-centered support
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Enhancing premium restoration in four steps

April 15, 2020 Discovery Health Partners
Enhancing premium restoration in four steps

Today, more than 22 million seniors and people with disabilities choose a Medicare Advantage plan, and enrollment is projected to increase to an all-time high of 24.4 million this year1. Do you have insight into how much revenue your plan might be losing in underpaid premiums?

Ensuring accurate premium payments for your Medicare Advantage members requires the right people, processes, and technology to identify your potential for premium restoration. It all starts with data. By integrating data sources and viewing eligibility data holistically, you can easily identify members with the greatest propensity for inaccuracy: those requiring Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) validation and those diagnosed with end-stage renal disease (ESRD).

Here are four steps you can take to capture underpaid premiums:

#1: Identify members with premium restoration potential

The undisputed first step in capturing underpaid premiums is identifying those members with premium restoration potential. Our experience shows that an average of 4% of Medicare Advantage members have open MSP records, and 50% of those records have premium restoration potential. By identifying members with MSP or ESRD, your plan can ensure those members are accounted for in MMRs and in payments from CMS.

#2: Improve process efficiencies

When analyzing open MSP and ESRD occurrences, your plan needs to identify and prioritize those that require investigation. By allocating scarce resources to the activities that will have the greatest impact on the bottom line, you can ensure that dollars and staff time are spent wisely and efficiently.

#3: Monitor the financial impact

As premium restoration becomes more complex and when resources are limited, sophisticated monitoring is needed to achieve the results your plan expects. With a proactive approach to monitoring premium restorations, you will want to forecast how many dollars will be added to the premium check, uncover whether you have received every month of restored premiums, and maintain an audit trail to validate the outcomes and steps taken to correct inaccuracies.

#4: Maintain ongoing premium restoration activities

Given the impact it can have on your bottom line, the premium restoration process must be maintained on an ongoing basis. By ensuring payment accuracy throughout the year, you can capitalize on significant revenue opportunities month after month, year after year.

Discovery’s data analytics combined with our deep understanding of CMS eligibility rules can help your plan unlock the hidden value in your data and collect the full value of premiums owed.

Read our eBook, Restoring millions for your Medicare Advantage plan, to learn more.
Get the eBook: Restoring millions for your Medicare Advantage plan

1 https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/trump-administration-drives-down-medicare-advantage-and-part-d-premiums-seniors
Discovery Health PartnersEnhancing premium restoration in four steps
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Restoring Medicare premium revenue during COVID-19

March 31, 2020 Jeffrey Martin
Restoring Medicare premium revenue during COVID-19

Medicare Advantage enrollment and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are on the rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), older adults and individuals who have health conditions like heart, lung, or kidney disease may be at a higher risk for complications.

Your Medicare Advantage plan relies on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) for information regarding other health insurance and certain health conditions. When this information contains errors, it affects your bottom line. For many Medicare Advantage plans, the losses can be more than they realize.

What can your Medicare Advantage plan do to maximize its financial performance during these challenging times?

You can begin to recover the premium dollars owed to your health plan by performing a retrospective review of eligibility data. Going back seven years, you can review your monthly membership report (MMR) files to look for indications that the health plan is owed additional premium reimbursement for certain members.

What are the top reasons for missed premium restoration cues?

There are several cues that a plan may miss when it comes to premium restoration:

  • Incomplete data aggregation from the plan’s IT department
  • Inaccurate member questionnaire data
  • Section 111 reporting inaccuracies by commercial plans
  • Inability to completely or accurately validate a member’s other insurance
  • ECRS Web rejections that should actually result in premium reimbursements

Finding the causes of these missed cues can be difficult. Would you even know if your IT department is sending you incomplete data? What if you cannot get another insurer to validate eligibility information for a member? If CMS denies a seemingly legitimate eligibility update, do you know how to overturn that?

How Discovery can help

Discovery Health Partners can strengthen your premium integrity efforts by taking a closer look at Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) validation and members with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). A recent analysis by S&P Global Ratings states that COVID-19 will end up costing U.S. health insurers more than $90 billion in medical claims.1 More than ever, it is important for plans to chart a course for transformative action that not only protects their premium revenue but also protects their workforce. With more individuals working from home and being allocated to support critical COVID-19 initiatives, Discovery is ready to continue working diligently on behalf of our health plan clients to identify eligibility issues and premium reductions.

We have helped clients restore millions with our Medicare Secondary Payer Validation solution:

  • $2.1 million for a 20,000-member regional plan
  • $16 million for a 30,000-member Midwest plan
  • $5.7 million for a 200,000-member Blues plan

In addition, our ESRD Premium Restoration solution has helped clients restore:

  • $6.5 million for a 160,000-member Medicare Advantage plan across a two-year engagement
  • $4 million for a 230,000-member Medicare Advantage plan seven months after implementation
  • $3 million for a 100,000-member Medicare Advantage plan in 12 months

The amount of potential restoration opportunity is a function of four parameters:

  1. Successful validation of inaccurate records
  2. Number of months of restoration opportunity for each incorrect record
  3. Average monthly restoration amount
  4. CMS acceptance rate of corrections submitted

Contact Discovery Health Partners today to find out how we can help you with your premium restoration efforts as your health plan navigates the impact of COVID-19.

Access the latest COVID-19 information and guidelines from CMS.

1https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/covid-19-could-cost-health-insurers-93b-in-us-s-p-says.html
Jeffrey MartinRestoring Medicare premium revenue during COVID-19
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Transitioning toward data-driven payment integrity solutions

March 12, 2020 Discovery Health Partners
Transitioning toward data-driven payment integrity solutions

Evolving payment models and new technologies are supporting health plans’ efforts to implement more proactive, data-driven payment integrity solutions. Discovery Health Partners discusses what’s in store for the future of payment integrity and how the company is helping clients make the transition from retrospective to prospective programs.  

Trends that are re-shaping payment integrity strategies

During the last decade, a number of emerging trends have impacted health plans’ ability to reduce their exposure and increase payment accuracy. Value-based contracting, for example, has left many payers struggling to figure out how to transition to the performance-based payment methodologies that center on cost efficiency, quality, and delivery standards. The changes around CMS’ reimbursement models for home health and skilled nursing can pose some challenges as provider and payers adapt to those changes and create new PI audit opportunities. Payment integrity programs can provide needed support in adapting to claims processing changes like these.

At the same time, providers themselves are evolving and making changes to their billing processes based on these new models. In order to mitigate potential payment errors, health plans are moving from a retrospective process of identification and recovery to a more cost-effective prospective approach. Through clinical audits focused on the provider type, place of service, and their reimbursement models, plans can verify that services billed were performed, ensure proper payments, and avoid the costs of recovery. Payment integrity has a role to play here. Focused payment integrity programs that take a holistic approach to claims auditing enable health plans to shift from cost recovery to prevention and cost avoidance, thereby increasing claim payment accuracy.

Helping transform payment integrity approaches

As industry needs change, Discovery has stepped up our payment integrity capabilities with the addition of new talent, technology platforms, and analytical tools. We continue to expand our core offerings, adding new services and strengthening our cost avoidance competencies to help clients address their payment integrity challenges. Furthermore, Discovery is adding resources through strategic partnerships, and last year we acquired HealthMind, which brought us core payment integrity expertise and an integrated end-to-end-payment integrity application enabled by analytics and workflow that greatly expands our pre-pay solutions portfolio. With this new platform, we are scaling our payment accuracy capabilities and portfolio and building focused solutions around urgent care, home health, skilled nursing facilities, high-cost drugs, and more to help clients shift their focus to cost avoidance while still supporting recovery operations.

Using data to evolve payment integrity approach

The healthcare industry is accelerating its adoption of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to add efficiency and cut costs across operations, including in the payment integrity space. With the HealthMind acquisition, we’re well-positioned to support data-driven solutions and secondary code edit, provider audit, and data mining capabilities. This expands our ability to leverage analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to audit millions of claims every month and find the “needle in the haystack” claims that yield the highest savings for health plans. We are also using analytics to identify patterns in client data that are specific to that provider. We can use that information to educate clients on how to address specific trends to improve their billing processes. We can also help them identify opportunities to change behaviors, so they are able to pivot to a proactive payment process.

Going into 2020 and beyond, our focus is to build on our technology foundation to provide full end-to-end payment integrity solutions for health plans that don’t have those resources in-house. We will also continue providing support for plans that have an internal payment integrity function.

Health plans are looking for a true partner who can help them support and enhance their payment integrity efforts so they can better control costs associated with incorrect billing and overpaid claims and improve administrative and medical loss ratios. With years of experience supporting both payment integrity and managed care, Discovery’s connected payment integrity approach—combined with our dedication to partnership, responsiveness, and relationships—delivers results that go far beyond financial value.

Find out how Discovery Health Partners can help strengthen your payment integrity initiatives in 2020. Contact us today!

Discovery Health PartnersTransitioning toward data-driven payment integrity solutions
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ESRD: Finding and restoring underpaid CMS premiums in five steps

March 5, 2020 Jeffrey Martin
ESRD: Finding and restoring underpaid CMS premiums in five steps

Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollment is on the rise, helping to boost health plans’ annual profits to $35.7 billion in 2019.1 These enrollment increases are expected to continue in 2020, so it’s critical to make sure CMS properly pays you for all your MA members.

Especially when it comes to members with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), the final stage of chronic kidney disease that requires patients to undergo costly dialysis or kidney transplants. Members with ESRD account for a disproportionate amount of medical expenses. Experience shows that health plans are underpaid an average of $60,000 in CMS premiums for each misidentified or inappropriately documented ESRD member. Without a strategy to identify these members, your MA plan could be missing out on millions of additional premium dollars from CMS.

CMS allows health plans to identify, investigate, and restore up to 84 months of underpaid premiums for members with ESRD. Your plan maintains responsibility for identifying those ESRD members and ensuring data is validated and corrected according to CMS guidelines. It can be a challenge to sift through CMS monthly membership reports (MMRs), plan eligibility files, and claims data to find any potentially underpaid premiums.

However, with a systematic approach, plans can gain control of ESRD member statuses and restore underpaid premiums. Let’s look at five ways you can take control of your ESRD premiums.

#1: Explore the hidden value in your data

Your data is critical to restoring underpaid ESRD premiums. Potential missing flags can be hidden in various, disparate data sources and take years to uncover. You will want to dedicate resources and analytics to bring these data sources together and surface anomalies. By regularly combing through MMR, eligibility, and claims data going as far back as 84 months, you can identify likely ESRD members that require further investigation.

#2: Investigate cases that show opportunity

After using your data to identify possible opportunities for ESRD premium restoration, you will want to investigate each case to determine what funds may be owed to you. With the right investigation process, you can determine the root-cause issues for each ESRD member you identified. Then outline the right process you need to follow to address the issues with the appropriate submitting authorities.

#3: Remediate the case

Once you have properly investigated the possible ESRD case, you will want to use that information in your remediation efforts. Your investigation will have uncovered the root cause of the problem, inaccurate or incomplete submissions, and any inconsistencies in the data. In your remediation efforts, you will use the right method of outreach and coordinate with dialysis centers, CMS, or other third parties to ensure the information is corrected and updates are confirmed.

#4: Restore underpaid premiums

Your investigation and remediation efforts will have given you the information you need to seek premium restoration. At this point, you will have corrected the information and submitted it to CMS for restoration. As soon as that has been done, you will want to diligently track and reconcile restored premiums and monitor future premiums for accuracy for as long as it takes to make sure revenue is fully realized.

#5: Monitor premiums

After you have worked to restore premiums, you will want to continue to ensure that all ESRD members are identified. Whether you review data on a monthly basis or do a health check twice a year, you will want to ensure that identified ESRD member statuses continue to be reported accurately and that correct premiums continue to be paid.

Plans that take a systematic approach to analyzing and reconciling their ESRD membership can successfully restore underpaid premiums and ensure accurate premium payments going forward. Many plans find that partnering with an experienced ESRD premium restoration vendor to focus on the things outside the plan’s control can help maximize results.

 

Contact Discovery Health Partners today to find out how we can help you restore underpaid premiums for members with ESRD.

Fierce Healthcare, “Health insurers’ profits topped $35B last year. Medicare Advantage is the common thread,” February 24, 2020.
Jeffrey MartinESRD: Finding and restoring underpaid CMS premiums in five steps
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Fixing payment integrity at the source

February 6, 2020 Jeffrey Martin
Fixing payment integrity at the source

“New year, new me.” Seems like we hear this at the beginning of every year and hold on to the promise of moving on from the past and setting new goals for the future. Likewise, healthcare organizations are kicking off 2020 by charting new paths to address old problems and expanding into new initiatives to stay ahead of the competition.

Priorities such as increasing member satisfaction, provider relationships, and regulatory compliance remain top of mind for many health plans, which makes it a good time to take a fresh look at your payment integrity strategies and resources. Now is the time to evaluate how well your plan is maximizing recovery opportunities, improving cost avoidance strategies, and exploring premium restoration possibilities. To do this, you need to start at the source of your payment integrity challenges: eligibility data.

The impact of eligibility errors

It’s a known fact that improper payments abound in healthcare, many of which stem from eligibility errors made as a result of multiple data sources, outdated technology, manual processes, and members with other insurance coverage. When eligibility errors occur, they affect many payment integrity areas such as coordination of benefits (COB), subrogation, and Medicare secondary payer (MSP) validation. Failing to address these issues leads to incorrectly paid claims, improper reimbursements, or claims that shouldn’t be paid at all—costing your plan millions.

According to Gartner, billions of dollars are spent every year in improper claims payments across commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid lines of business. Gartner research states, “Payer CIOs must get proactive and leapfrog current performance by focusing on prospective payment integrity capabilities.” With this in mind, what can you do to strengthen your payment integrity approach?1

Identify inaccurate eligibility data

When taking a close look at eligibility data, your plan will want to determine which claims may have been paid incorrectly as a result of inaccuracies. We estimate that 20% of a plan’s membership will have other insurance, and of that 20%, the other insurance will be primary 17.5% of the time. For a 200,000-member plan, this represents nearly $5.4 million in incorrectly paid claims. When statistics like this are uncovered, the plan quickly realizes how important it is to keep its eligibility data in check.

Determine a cost-avoidance strategy

Avoiding improper payments is a core tenet of any payment integrity strategy. Accurate and trusted eligibility data plays a key role. We estimate that the same 200,000-member plan could save over $13.4 million by avoiding incorrect payments. With the right cost avoidance strategies founded on accurate eligibility data, the plan stands to see a significant impact to its bottom line.

Look beyond dollars and cents

When evaluating your payment integrity strategy, you will want to think beyond dollars and cents. Quality eligibility data will have a positive effect on administrative efficiency, member satisfaction, and provider relations.

By avoiding improper payments in the first place, you avoid the need to rebill, saving you and your staff valuable time and energy that might be channeled toward other payment integrity initiatives.

Member satisfaction is a key priority for any health plan. In fact, the member experience drives performance on CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems), which is a key driver of Star ratings. Eligibility data drives a diverse number of systems and processes including registration, enrollment, care provision, wellness, and customer care. All of these areas influence your members’ experiences with your plan.

Lastly, providers depend on prompt, accurate payment. When claims are denied as a result of recurrent eligibility issues, payer-provider relationships already burdened by administrative complexity are further strained. Ensuring accurate eligibility data and determinations not only improves efficiencies, it also helps to accelerate reimbursements, greatly improving relationships and alignment.

Consider a connected payment integrity approach

Given the effect that eligibility data can have on payments, you will want to consider a connected payment integrity approach and address any gaps in your technology. Often, challenges arise from multiple sources of data, conflicting or inaccurate data, data integration challenges, manual workflows, multiple reporting systems, and more. By creating a technology environment that can support connected payment integrity functions (e.g., claims recovery, subrogation, and COB), business managers and IT can come together in their thinking and create a single, trusted source of eligibility data.

 

Contact Discovery Health Partners today to find out how we can support your payment integrity initiatives in 2020 and beyond.

1Gartner, “U.S. Healthcare Payer CIOs Must Adopt Prospective Payment Integrity to Thwart Improper Claims Payment and Fraud,” February 13, 2018.
Jeffrey MartinFixing payment integrity at the source
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Jason Brown on the road ahead for payment integrity

January 16, 2020 Jason Brown
Jason Brown on the road ahead for payment integrity

As the industry transitions from volume to value-based healthcare, health plans face increasing pressure to better manage costs and ensure payment integrity. We recently sat down with Jason Brown, CEO of Discovery Health Partners, to get his thoughts on recent trends and how they’re shaping the road ahead in 2020.

Healthcare continues to change and evolve. What do you see as some of the trends setting the stage for optimizing payment integrity?

Health plans face a number of challenges when it comes to ensuring the right care is provided to the right member for the right amount. Complex billing processes, changing regulations, outdated and disparate data systems, and overlapping coverage all contribute to improperly paid claims. Today, nearly a third of claims are paid incorrectly, leading to billions in administrative waste.

In 2020 and beyond, we anticipate health plans will continue to struggle with rising healthcare costs, numerous competing priorities, and a lack of resources. Furthermore, changing regulations and mandates will continue to add layers of administrative and clinical complexity to a system already bogged down in paperwork. While there is no clear path to cost containment, there are ways health plans can work toward transforming their payment integrity approaches. An example is leveraging advanced technologies to move from retrospective payment to prospective payment—by detecting improper claims before they are paid, health plans can keep costs in check, increase member satisfaction, and most importantly, cultivate healthy provider partnerships.

What are some of the ways Discovery is helping health plans address their payment integrity challenges?

This past year has been an exciting time of innovation and growth for Discovery. We have an expanded suite of payment integrity solutions—Coordination of Benefits, Subrogation, Data Mining, Clinical Audits (in areas such as diagnosis-related group (DRG) audits and itemized bill review audits) and Premium Restoration. Our integrated solutions are designed to work together. This connected approach helps optimize claims recoveries and avoid future expenses across the entire claim lifecycle while reducing provider and member abrasion.

What makes Discovery unique is that our solutions start with our clients’ own data and processes. We leverage the latest analytical tools and technology like machine learning to identify patterns that present opportunities for cost recovery and cost savings. By blending artificial intelligence with human expertise, we identify hidden errors and root causes that are often overlooked. We also provide the highest levels of support to our clients, acting as an extension of their teams, to free up their internal resources so they can focus on other business priorities.

Since its inception, Discovery has been proud to provide flexible solutions that help health plans solve their payment integrity challenges. Our newly formed Client Council provides a platform for clients to share industry insights and challenges with their peers and help drive product innovations with Discovery. Going forward, custom-tailored solutions like ours will be key to helping plans manage costs while maintaining the high levels of care that their members expect.

What’s on the horizon for Discovery in 2020?

During the past decade, we’ve demonstrated measurable success by helping our clients improve operational efficiencies, increase claims accuracy and payment, and recover dollars back to their health plans.

From 2020 forward, we will continue to evolve existing solutions and create new forward-thinking approaches to help plans prevent and recover inaccurate payments. By expanding our use of data analytics and data integration and accelerating our investments in research and technology like machine learning and predictive analytics, we will help health plans capitalize on information to coordinate claims correctly. Once individual plans reach the point where they are paying the appropriate amount for the healthcare that’s delivered, they can re-invest in clinical care for their members.

At the same time, we will position clients to transition toward a more proactive approach to cost management. Reimagining the payments process and applying insights further upstream will be key to enabling providers to take advantage of opportunities to proactively change wasteful behaviors.

And of course, we’ll continue to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry. By building partnerships with our clients, industry organizations, agencies and others to learn about best practices and stay on top of the latest trends, we can prepare clients for the challenges ahead.

 

Find out how Discovery Health Partners can help strengthen your payment integrity initiatives in 2020. Contact us today!

Jason BrownJason Brown on the road ahead for payment integrity
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A year in review: top blogs from 2019

December 19, 2019 Discovery Health Partners
A year in review: top blogs from 2019

The new year is upon us and with it comes a new decade. It has been a decade of transformation for healthcare with regulatory changes, health system consolidation, healthcare consumerism, and new technologies that have forever changed the industry. 2019 has been a time of change and growth for Discovery Health Partners as well. Here are highlights from our most popular blogs of 2019 to remind you what we’ve been up to all year.

3 bad habits that are good for subrogation

In February, we talked about the three “bad habits” that can lead to successful subrogation: be unfair, ignore your members, and be pushy. In any other scenario, these tactics can get you into trouble. But for subrogation, being unfair requires that you not treat all cases equally. Ignoring your members is all about avoiding member abrasion. And being pushy involves aggressively identifying and verifying subrogation cases. Altogether, these tactics help improve the opportunity for quick and fair settlement of subrogation cases.

Why Medicare Advantage plans may be losing money on members with ESRD

In March, we featured a post about the challenges Medicare Advantage plans face with members with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Though ESRD afflicts fewer than 100,000 people nationwide, the disease requires lifelong care—and a disproportionate percentage of medical expense. The blog discusses the gap in CMS premiums for ESRD members and what Medicare Advantage plans can do to better identify them.

It’s challenging to identify and restore underpaid ESRD premiums. Here’s how to solve that

Another popular blog continued the ESRD discussion, highlighting a systematic approach Medicare Advantage plans can take to restore ESRD premiums. This includes automating the process of sifting through data to identify potentially underpaid premiums and maximizing the 84 months that CMS allows plans to identify, investigate, and restore premiums. The blog identifies five key components of an effective ESRD program: analytics, investigation, remediation, restoration, and monitoring.

Subrogation: 3 ways SaaS can help

In July, we returned to the topic of subrogation with a discussion of how software-as-a-service applications can help. Plans are finding that combining SaaS applications with in-house expertise creates a more effective, data-driven approach for finding and validating subrogation recovery opportunities. Specifically, you can: 1) make in-house recovery more efficient and insightful; 2) gain accessible, easy-to-use, scalable, and secure solutions; and 3) do more at a lower cost.

Stay tuned to our blog for more insights on these topics and to see what 2020 has in store. You can also get the latest industry and Discovery updates by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Are you interested in learning how Discovery Health Partners can support your organization? Contact us today!

Discovery Health PartnersA year in review: top blogs from 2019
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