The local supermarket knows more about our patients than we do.
While this seems nonsensical, supermarkets collect and analyse information that helps them decide which products to stock and what additional services to provide.
But general practices are seldom aware of the demographics, financial status or lifestyles of our clients, and rarely do they consider the population health opportunities.
Practices have the raw data in clinical and billing records but not the time to analyse the data.
And the analytic tools in clinical medical records are limited in the range of factors that can be explored.
How can general practices remain competitive?
In my practice, we have a database management program that does daily extracts of information and we can easily explore the financial and clinical aspects of our practice.
In this series of articles, I will explain how you can access valuable information in your clinical records:
- exploring your patients’ needs;
- recognising opportunities for expanding the services you offer;
- identifying where clinical results have been overlooked or tests have not been ordered;
- measuring the performance of your practice and your doctors to improve health care delivery to your patients;
- discovering how delivering better care is more rewarding and profitable.
- improving the outcomes of patients with long-term (chronic) conditions; and
- preparing for MyMedicare.
Preparing for MyMedicare with the right tools
From 1 October 2023, patients will be able to voluntarily register with a doctor or a practice, and will (eventually) have access to benefits and in particular, better care delivery.
For your practice, the financial benefits will start in 2024 when you will receive a cash payment for managing the ‘hospital frequent flyers’ who are registered at your practice.
While the Health Department is still working out the details, it is a good idea to identify your ‘frequent flyers’ and patients with chronic disease to make sure they are registered with you.
Preparing for MyMedicare without the right tools is complicated and time consuming.
Using our analytics tool Clinimetrix, we can access a list of all qualifying patients in under 5 minutes.
If you agree that identifying groups of your patients to ensure they enroll with your practice is important, then right now there is only one tool that provides the full range of data you need.
See how to use Clinimetrix to generate reports for your practice by joining the members area here https://www.clinimetrix.com.au/members-only.