At Silverline, we believe in data.
We’ve been working in the healthcare space for 10+ years, and there’s one thing the healthcare industry continues to do well: produce mountains and mountains of data. There’s clinical trials, studies, patient reports and monitoring — not to mention clinic attendance, gaps in care, and scheduling.
But with all this data, it can be hard to see the big picture, especially when it comes to running your clinic, network, or hospital. As a provider, your focus is rightly on your patients: individual aches and pains, chronic illnesses, and symptoms.
To see the patterns, you have to go bigger. That’s why our team compiled these key healthcare industry stats after thorough research — so you can see what matters in the healthcare industry today, and what you need to know to be successful tomorrow.
The patient experience is more important than ever
The transition to more consumer-driven healthcare has made every interaction between a patient and your organization even more critical to ensuring the highest level of engagement and satisfaction. In fact:
- 82% of patients say quality customer service is the most important factor they consider when choosing care
Most importantly, patients emphasized the digital experience. How you communicate with customers matters.
- 62% said good communication and continuous engagement mattered the most
- 50% said that a bad digital experience with a healthcare provider ruins the entire experience with that provider, while 39% said a good digital experience has a major influence in staying with that provider
Your patient experience isn’t just when someone comes in to see the doctor or nurse. Every interaction you have with a patient, from texting them a reminder about their upcoming visit to emailing information about getting their routine medical care like flu vaccines, matters.
To provide the best care, physicians need more information
One of the main challenges of patient-centered care is that most physicians don’t have a complete picture of their patients. It’s difficult to spot trends or accurately diagnose issues without a full understanding of social determinants and medical history.
- Only 60% of physicians have access to a provider directory curated by their health system
- 25-50% of referring physicians do not know whether their patients see a specialist
- 30% of prescriptions for chronic health conditions are never filled, and 50% aren’t taken as directed
When providers don’t have the data they need, it’s impossible to do their jobs. Whether it’s understanding if a prescription has been picked up, notifying specialists of medical records or working with them on a care plan, or creating a comprehensive patient profile, you need to empower your staff with the information they need to do their best work.
Network leakage is one of the biggest costs to providers
It happens every day. Even after a patient confirms their appointment, late arrivals and no-shows wreak havoc with scheduling. But do you know why they no-show for their appointments or never follow through on their referrals?
- 66% of physicians are dissatisfied with current referral processes
- 60% of patients leave without a referral appointment scheduled, which can lead to patients not following through on referrals at all
- 35-40% of patient referrals never reach the clinic or hospital
That process isn’t just cumbersome to physicians and patients — it costs your clinic serious cash every year to provide referrals outside of the network.
- Missed appointments cost the U.S. healthcare system more than $150 billion a year
- 25% of referrals made by physicians go to out-of-network specialists; 34% of those could be avoided with more robust information
- The average clinic cost for a referral lost appointment no-show is $210
- Hospital executives claim significant annual patient revenue loss from patient leakage: 35% say up to 10% of their revenue, while 24% say up to 20% of their revenue losses
While providers are frequently tasked with keeping referrals in network, they often lack visibility into who is in-network and their areas of expertise.
Closing gaps in care is essential for better patient outcomes
Gaps in care, or care management, refers to the discrepancy between the care provided to patients and the recommended best practices in healthcare. Effective patient engagement that helps reduce gaps in care requires more than just knowing the patient’s medical history. But the challenge is that a gap in care is just that — a gap.
- 50% of all U.S. patients do not fully adhere to their prescribed care plan
- 33-69% of medication-related hospital admissions are due to poor adherence
- 30% of prescriptions for chronic health conditions are never filled, and 50% aren’t taken as directed
This often leads to hospital readmissions, which are costly for both patients and providers.
- 82% of hospitals received readmissions penalties in the last year
- 13.9% was the average readmission rate in 2017
- $17 billion spent on avoidable hospital trips after discharge
- $100-300 billion of annual healthcare costs attributed to non-adherence
Care gaps often persist because of the lack of care coordination amongst providers and patients.
- Medicare Advantage plans that score 4 stars or above can receive a 5% quality bonus payment
- For plans with 3.5 stars, improving one measure can increase revenue by $2 PMPM on average
Silverline can help you digitize your operations
Starting with Salesforce Health Cloud, Silverline has created a Salesforce for Patient Engagement solution to give providers a prescriptive, proven, and cost effective approach to delivering patient engagement while maintaining care delivery that is right-sized to the current healthcare environment.
We’re here to help you no matter where you are in your patient engagement journey. Explore here for more information about our patient engagement bundled offering.
