CHI Health at Home Selects Excel Health for Access to More Timely and Complete Referral and Outcomes Data

Switch to Excel Health enables CHI Health at Home to compete more effectively in today’s value-based care economy

Milford, OH – April 17, 2018 – Excel Health, the healthcare industry’s only source for current and complete outcomes data and performance analytics, announced today that CHI Health at Home, the national service provider for Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and one of the country’s largest and most innovative post-acute care providers, has chosen Excel Health’s software platform. Covering 28 markets across nine states, CHI Health at Home’s business development resources now have access to more timely, complete and strategic insights that facilitate more meaningful conversations with their referral network partners.

“Once we learned Excel Health provides complete claims data directly from CMS within a few months of the claim being filed, we knew we would finally have the visibility and clarity we hadn’t been able to get with our previous vendor,” said Rodney Plunkett, Vice President of Population Health Management at CHI Health at Home. “Vague, directional data is no longer good enough in today’s value-based care environment. With Excel Health, we are now able to share fact-based, physician-specific and diagnosis-specific insights with our referral partners, which in turn, enables us to demonstrate how CHI Health at Home is uniquely qualified to help improve both their clinical and financial outcomes.”

As more health systems like CHI and physicians practices move toward risk-based contracts, home health care providers must be able to differentiate themselves on quality performance goals that align with the referral source’s reimbursement models. 

Plunkett added, “In many cases, our referral sources are surprised that we have more information about their recent patient outcomes than they do. We’re able to show them the cost of patient non-adherence as well as the impact of events like readmissions and rehospitalizations, even down to the diagnosis code level. When we compare our performance metrics against what is actually happening with their patients after discharge, they instantly want to know how we can help them improve. When it’s all based on the most recent claims data, it is a much more productive conversation.”

Being a part of one of the nation’s largest health systems, CHI Health at Home is now able to more closely identify network leakage at the physician and facility level. According to Michael Brents, Divisional Director of Clinical Analytics and Informatics for CHI Health at Home, “Excel Health is the only vendor to provide access to both Medicare Part A and B claims data, which gives us a level of visibility into both our hospital and physician referral activity that we’ve never had before. We can actually show our network partners which patients were discharged with home health instructions vs. those who were not vs. those who actually landed in home health. The comparative outcomes across all three buckets really helps them see where their processes are falling short and how we can be of great value.” 

From an operational perspective, Excel Health data is also delivering new visibility to resource planning. Brents added, “Equipped with the complete picture, our leadership team is now able to better align resources with the current opportunity in a specific territory. We can also see areas where we thought we were getting the lions’ share of the business, and the Excel Health data provides us a true picture of what is really going on. Because the data is as close to real-time as we can get, we are able to make the necessary changes now vs. a year later when it’s too late.”

Putting Insights into Action
Coming up to speed on the new solution took a matter of days, instead of the months CHI Health at Home experienced with its previous vendor. The intuitive nature of the solution, combined with video-based training modules, enabled all associates to start using the system immediately, prior to the formal training program. When the team came together for the training sessions, they were able to dive into their own market-specific book of business and identify new growth opportunities.

“Ease of use and system adoption were barriers with our previous solution,” said Brents. “It worked for someone like me who studies and manipulates data tables all day, but for the average sales person, it was very cumbersome to understand what you were looking at, so the system didn’t get used very often. The simplicity of the Excel Health solution along with its built-in, tip text that pops up when the user hovers over a field has enabled our team to jump right in. Plus, with the new system utilization tool, we are able to see that the majority of our team members are logging into the system several times a week.” 

Ian Juliano, CEO of Excel Health Group commented, “With our solution, home health agencies like CHI Health at Home are finally able to access the full set of data they need to properly position their value and services to the right referral sources at the right time with the right message. We enable our clients to become trusted advisors for their referral sources, helping hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and physicians to develop more effective post-acute strategies to achieve performance goals. And because the data is delivered through our easy to use, web-based solution, sales resources know more and can do more to help providers better serve their patients and improve outcomes. The bar has clearly been raised when it comes to how sales resources are now interacting with their referral partners.”

The Excel Health Difference
Unlike other market intelligence providers who only deliver Medicare Part A institutional data representing only 33 percent of post-acute claims, Excel Health delivers 100 percent of all Medicare Part A and B data, which includes outpatient services, physicians, preventative care, labs, mental health, home health and more. This complete set of data helps organizations more accurately identify referral patterns and new opportunities to grow their entire referral networks profitably.

Excel Health customers can also access unique quality performance metrics, such as hospital readmission rates by diagnostic category and patient acuity levels, to identify and demonstrate areas where they outperform their competition. This fact-based information leads to trusted relationships with referral partners, who can see the positive impact the right home health partner can have on their quality scores and payment programs. And because Excel Health is the only provider to deliver utilization data on each previous CMS quarter, customers are able quickly respond to changing market conditions.