Today numerous health systems find themselves managing complex medical groups, among which the most complex are the Service Lines. Physicians whose specialties are within the Service Lines (Cardiovascular, Orthopedics, Oncology or Women’s Services) find that their clinical work is performed in the hospital settings, yet their governance and decision-making processes often are made within the medical group structure. Frequently, this structure creates misalignment and competing interest, resulting in internal conflict for a health system.  

In this white paper, you will find the steps to overcome these struggles while gaining knowledge from first-hand experiences with a Cardiovascular medical group, which is outlined in a case study highlighting how RoundTable was able to combat these concerns and solidify solutions for a successful outcome.  

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

Structure within complex medical groups is competing with that found in parent health systems.  With specific specialty service lines needing its own governance and organizational processes, they are struggling with the development and implementation of this framework. These medical groups need the answers to the who, when, why and how their organizations will be managed. 

BACKGROUND/SOLUTIONS:

Having extensive work experience as independent consultants with medical groups and internally at regional health systems, RoundTable has identified attributes that high performing groups have in common and have developed individual strategic plans that provide an overall Practice Assessment and Organizational and Leadership Design. Defining and maintaining organizational excellence is the prime solution for medical groups.

 Organizational Excellence 

At the center of organizational excellence is the organizational culture, defined as those qualities that reflect the values or beliefs to which an organization and its individuals should adhere, identifying behavior and ultimately driving the organizations product and outcomes. Culture is a state of belief that must be developed within, however there are some basic foundational operational levers that form the core functional base for an organization, ultimately shaping a culture of trust.

The foundational operational levers, defining Organizational Excellence can be broken down into 4 major categories, the defined attributes for each category are summarized below:

• Strategic Focus
• Governance Clarity 
• Performance Management
• Leadership Agility

Strategic Focus 

*The strategic focus is that intersection of three key elements of the business model: 

1. The organization’s passion — its compelling purpose composed of values, mission, vision, and goals which inspire and motivate the members of the organization, 
2. The value proposition of the business — what the customer values in the offerings and rewards the    organization for doing, and 
3. A distinctive competency — what the organization can do best – above all others  

When organizations define their strategic focus, most will point to a once a year strategic planning session or retreat where the key principles gather, discuss the direction for the organization and identify the threats and opportunities in the market or industry. While the strategic planning is part of the process, the method of connecting strategic direction to your organizational objective and creating organizational buy-in are what defines an organization’s realistic strategic focus. Some questions you should be asking regarding your organization’s strategic process include:

• • How do you use the strategic plan?
  • Does everyone know the strategic direction?
  • Are budgets created based on strategic plan?
  • Are operational objectives created based on strategic plan?
  • How and when do you know you have achieved your objectives?

Defining the objectives or measuring the outcomes, based on specific strategic planning goals will give your organization a sense of direction, providing the members clarity about the plan thus allowing the individuals to execute within their specific domain. Step two of the strategic focus is the ability to evaluate the process or the plan relative to the outcomes. Most high functioning groups actually revisit and review the results within one year, while others reflect on the results more frequently. The process of review gives the organization accountability to the strategic process, consequently allowing feedback on outcomes. 

Governance Clarity 

Governance is the processes and decisions that define actions, rules and norms of an organization. The ability for an organization to create transparency or clarity for its organizational structure, decision making, and communication is paramount to creating trust. We find that many healthcare organizations today have a matrix relationship, with multiple stakeholders and no clearly defined decision-making process, leaving doubt among the rank and file to the organization’s ability to act efficiently and effectively, and uncertainty to who holds the title of decision maker. 

It is a fact that high performing groups have a formal governance structure, mostly centered around committees. Those committees can be challenging. The time and lack of delegated authority can cause increased frustration among the committee members if they do not see their impact in the decision-making process. On the contrary, the committees allow organizations to have increased participation among the key stakeholders, develop ownership in the process, and utilize individual interest and expertise. The most effective committees are those selected by their peers, represented of the group diversity, and have clearly defined decision rights. 

For medical practices, the involvement of key stakeholders usually indicates physician involvement. Healthcare organizations struggle with the time it takes to have highly engaged physicians, ultimately taking them away from the primary functions of patient care. Most groups with which we work indicated that their physicians were expected to participate, however interestingly most do not compensate physicians for their time. This would indicate that participation was part of “service citizenship” and was not just a transactional exchange of reimbursement for time.

Performance Management 

Performance management is a broad term coined by Dr. Aubrey Daniels in the 70’s that described an application method to manage both organizational results and human behaviors. For high performing healthcare groups, the application of performance management is the processes or tools that are used to measure and manage performance, clearly defined expectations, and accountability for execution. 

The first step of establishing a good performance management process is setting clearly defined expectations. This process is not completed upon the signing of an employment contract, but rather begins with leadership presenting a written standard to each person in the organization. The work standards should be inclusive of all the minimum expectations to each member of the organization., The standards should not be limited to productivity output or behaviors. This process should reflect critical factors in the overarching success of the organization and not be seen as punitive, although there should be consequences for non-conformist. 

Consider the following categories for minimum work standards:

1. Meeting attendance
2. Participation in committees
3. Productivity standard
4. Outreach participation
5. Chart completion standard
6. Coding compliance threshold
7. Adherence to Appropriate Use tools
8. Use of EMR Templates/CPOE
9. Patient Satisfaction threshold
10. Referring provider satisfaction threshold

The second step in developing an effective performance management program is having written guidelines. While minimum work standards are reflective of the individual; guidelines should shape the organizational expectations, rules and regulations – “how you operate.” From our experiences, we should note that written guidelines are not effective if they are not used. These documents should be revised or reviewed at least once every other year. One of the most contentious issues with which groups today are experiencing include the parameters and rules related to long time physicians wanting to slow down, more specifically wanting to stop taking calls but not wanting to stop clinical work completely. This issue is reoccurring as physicians are staying in practice longer, and may be bound to economic slowdowns or recessions.

Finally, all performance management programs should have standard dashboard(s) that measure performance or outcomes, on a regularly defined schedule. Dashboard metrics can be leading or lag indicators that ultimately measure key drivers that effect the overarching success of the organization’s strategic plan. While many programs have effective dashboards, we have outlined some common mistakes we see in dashboard metrics and performance management systems: 

1. Too many measures. It is most effective to have 5 or less.
2. Lack of support by end user. Consider having the end user choose from a limited list or have the end user create the measure with specific guidelines to keep them on track.
3. Measures do not represent or correlate with the organization’s Strategic Goals. Make sure they do!
4. Lack of clarity: WHAT? By WHOM? By WHEN? Consider using a SMART system to set goal achievement standards.

Leadership Agility

The new healthcare organization today is extremely complex; a matrix relationship that can appear to be slow and ineffective when it comes to making decisions. The larger healthcare organizations have a formal structure but may not have a clearly defined decision-making process — leaving individuals confused about who is making the ultimate decisions. This contrasts with the traditional physician-owned medical group where the structure is less formal, yet the ability to get the principles together and make decisions is relatively easy. With the increased integration within Cardiology, the newly formed organizations are challenged with merging the two cultures. NEEDS SOMETHING HERE There is a need to determine which type of matrixes work best for the leaders tasked with achieving the greater successes of the organization while aligning with the primary objectives. Two leadership matrixes are detailed below:

• Defined Roles and Responsibilities – Organizations need to clearly define the roles and responsibilities for their leaders. This will promote clarity for the leader and the organizational membership. The trends in Cardiology are making this fairly simple concept more complex as we try defining the responsibilities of Cardiovascular Physician leaders versus that of the Hospital Executive or Health System leadership. The most successful systems are now combing the expertise of both leaders and creating a leadership dyad that can gain prospective and expertise from each leader.
• Delegated Authority – Healthcare is one of fastest changing industries, for healthcare organizations to be effective, their leaders need to be able to make decisions. Effective organizations have actually defined what decisions are important and who can actually make those decision. While the document may seem very elementary, one thing we have found is a positive relationship between satisfaction and engagement among the membership once they understand the decision that are important and who will be responsible for those decisions. For medical organizations that are interested in physician satisfaction and engagement this tool has helped to create transparency and moving the organization to a trusting culture.

Delegated Authority Matrix example:

Decision Making 

CASE STUDY – EXAMPLE: Committees at Work

Who:

Integrated Cardiology Group, 50 Cardiologists 

The Cardiovascular Service Line (CVSL) Executive Committee was challenged with a request to develop a rural Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) program without surgical backup, 30 miles from the closest PCI program (STEMI) with open heart surgery. The CVSL leadership moved quickly to have the Operational and Market Development Committees join forces to vet the request and reconvene with recommendations. The committee members included physicians, hospital administration and practice administration.

Issue: 

1. No incremental increase in PCI volume, or market share projected.
2. Physician coverage, compensation WRVU model.
3. Concern of quality outcomes for a low volume program, <50 per year.
4. Hospital Administration – Halo effect of PCI program in a competitive market.

Outcome:

The collective committees shared their recommendation with the CVSL Executive Committee.  Their suggestion: Do not develop a PCI program at the rural hospital based on the operational costs for and the quality of a low volume program. The committee identified the need to hire at least 2 interventional cardiologists as well as indicating the concerning declines in volumes. The CVSL Executive Committee assessed the larger health system strategic plan and decided to develop a new PCI program based on that overarching strategic plan, siting a defensive strategy to keep current market share. Immediately after the Executive Committee made the decision, physician and administrative dyad leaders held an all-physicians meeting to communicate the decision and announce timelines for implementation. Using the committee information and concerns, the health system incentivized the cardiologists to develop the program, recognizing their time and protocol development.

Lesson Learned:

While the committee recommendations were not originally accepted, the action of involving the key stakeholders in the process allowed the overall decision to be accepted and implemented without issue. The diversity of the committees also allowed for varying prospective to be shared. The committee members knew their roles and responsibilities and understood that the ultimate decision was to be made by the Executive Committee who initially sought the recommendations but ultimately tied the final decision back to the overarching strategic plan for the organization. Upon finalization of the decision, key leadership united to deliver a clear, unified communication strategy to the organization’s membership detailing the resolution and why it was selected –creating a sense of unified direction.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In conclusion, it is paramount for a medical group to define the governance and decision-making processes to eliminate conflicts with its affiliated health system.  After all, we are all working to achieve the overarching goals of running efficient healthcare networks, treating patients, and improving the health of our nation. 

In an effort to create organizational excellence, the team must focus on the aforementioned key areas: 1. Strategic Focus – knowing the overall objectives and goals and understanding the direction in which to accomplish results, 2. Governance Clarity – establishing, defining and monitoring policies, processes and decision-making, 3. Performance Management – ongoing process of ensuring that actions are meeting the organization’s goals effectively and efficiently, and 4. Leadership Agility – taking direct action in rapidly changing and complicated conditions. These steps will guide the direction of the Practice Assessment and Organizational and Leadership Design, helping to establish a sustainable smart healthy community.

RoundTable has been a trusted partner with health systems, hospitals, and physician groups throughout the nation for more than seven years, stemming from more than 75+ years of healthcare experience.  As a solutions-oriented firm, RoundTable offers wholistic, strategic resolutions for Medical Groups; with specialty expertise in Cardiovascular (including service line development), Orthopaedics, Women’s Services, Primary Care and Urgent Care. Through information technology, resource management, revenue cycle performance, and strategic growth and execution, RoundTable has provided the plans and guidance to exceed expectations and needs within the healthcare industry.  

References

*http://www.business-architecture.net/glossary/strategic-focus

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The complexity of a multi-hospital system is staggering.  The countless medical groups of all subspecialties, the sheer number of leaders, the variety of delivery methods/ clinical protocols, and regional nuances, drive variation in cost and quality across the spectrum. 

In an effort to minimize the variety and delivery of the same standards in exceptional care, and to hold the similar cost structure; the most successful multi-hospital health systems have adopted a Service Line Management philosophy. 

Simply put, Service Line Management within a health system, organizes around clinical disease states for all hospitals, across all regions, in all environments, wherever the care to the patient is delivered.  In this way, both clinical and administrative Service Line leaders direct the clinical vision across the system.  They plan clinically and financially for overall system quality and develop the delivery model to inpatients and outpatients in a logical distribution of services.   

Success under this method is predicated upon clinical and administrative leaders agreeing on a single clinical strategy which joins best-practice, evidence-based protocols for care delivery.   While cardiovascular services led the way in Service Line Management development, today orthopedics, oncology, primary care, neuro sciences, women/children and wellness institutes of excellence all have adopted the Service Line structure within multi-hospital systems. 

While the adoption of the Service Line method appears to be the logical path for ANY system’s financial success and optimal patient care, turning the ship in this direction is no easy task.  Many non-traditional steps must be taken to ensure the success of the Service Line:

• A successful Service Line will develop the vision and direction of the Service Line across the enterprise vs. the historic design of hospital presidents.
• Service Lines direct the logical distribution of services throughout the network vs. the desires of community leaders or segments of specialty physicians.
• Clinical strategy directs technology purchases and service line direction vs. every hospital conducts all high-end services philosophy.

Developing a Service Line structure is just one step in the process. Maybe the most important step is to define clear roles and responsibilities for each contributor in the Service Line from leaders to committees.  The new healthcare organization today is incredibly complex with matrix relationships that can appear to be slow and ineffective when making decisions.

While the larger healthcare organizations have a formal structure, they may not have a clearly defined decision-making process leaving individuals confused about who is making the ultimate decisions. This is in contrast to the traditional physician-owned medical groups where the structure is less formal, yet the ability to gather the principles and make decisions is relatively easy. With the increased integration of medical groups and hospitals, the newly formed organizations are challenged with merging the two cultures. Below are two steps that, if done properly, can create a more successful Service Line Management structure.

• Defining Roles and Responsibilities – Organizations need to clearly define the roles and responsibility for their leaders. This will promote clarity for the overall leader and the organizational membership. The trends in Cardiology are making this fairly simple concept more complex as we try defining the responsibilities of Cardiovascular Physician leaders versus those of the Hospital Executive or Health System leadership. The most successful systems are now combining the expertise of both leaders to create a leadership dyad that can gain prospective and expertise from each leader.

• Defining Delegated Authority – Healthcare is one of fastest changing industries. For healthcare organizations to be effective, their leaders need to make decisions. Period. Effective organizations have defined what decisions are important and who can actually make those decisions. While the concept may seem elementary, there is a positive relationship between satisfaction and engagement among the membership once they understand the level of importance and the tasked leader for that decision. For medical organizations that are interested in physician satisfaction and engagement, this process has helped to create transparency and positive movement toward a highly desired trusting culture.

The development of a successful Service Line Management structure can be a daunting task. Organizations that have set out on the journey have done so with a multi-year plan to change the organization structure and find national leadership talent. Moving to a Service Line structure will challenge the status quo. Those that have been successful have created broad participation combining clinical and administrative strengths to address access, efficiency, quality and cost control across the entire enterprise.

For additional information on how RoundTable Strategic Solutions can help perform an Organizational Assessment or develop a Strategic Plan for your Service Line, please contact our team here or call 410.415.1440.

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The What:  What do they need to know? 

Coders’ expanded knowledge is now required to fully understand their role within the revenue cycle.  Their job can no longer be that of just silent coding for hours, day in and day out. Rather, there needs to be an educational component of how they fit into the revenue cycle and how their role, which is sometimes overlooked, is an integral part of optimizing reimbursement while ensuring compliance with state, federal and payor coding guidelines.

They need to know the downstream and upstream effects of revenue cycle performance and the journey of the claim. The Charge Description Master (CDM) and Fee Schedules are the back-bone of revenue cycle processes and their maintenance and accuracy can impact the bottom line – positively and negatively. While Computer Assisted Coding (CAC) and “claim scrubbers” tools have been implemented at health systems and physician groups to assist in solving for the shortage of Certified Professional Coders (CPC) within our industry, the reality is coders will continue to play a pivotal role for the foreseeable future. Focus on continued education, cross-training and retention programs.

In either instance, accurate and compliant coding practices drive financial performance by mitigating compliance risk along the way. The government and commercial payers are scrutinizing provider documentation to reduce unnecessary procedures that increase cost of care while ensuring the quality of care continues to rise.  Never before has the process of medical coding been so relevant to the performance of the revenue cycle.

The How:  What do coders need to do?

1. Better understand the Life of a Charge within your health system. You don’t know what you don’t know! The puzzle requires your input.
2. Understand how charges are priced and fee schedules are negotiated: they are defensible (how and why it is priced that way); they are consistent (support the charge); and they are documented (show outside constituents how it was priced).
3. Continue to educate themselves and expand their knowledge about their organization’s revenue cycle – learning what and why things happen and ways to improve the process.
4. Create a Revenue Integrity Program to help reduce denials, drive financial performance and minimize compliance risk. When done properly this program can fund itself… and then some!
5. Become involved in continuing education programs. Attend seminars and conferences to learn about the trends of the coding profession.

The ultimate takeaway: Coders need to play a larger role in solving the revenue cycle puzzle. They need to become engrossed in the revenue cycle and truly understand the ins and outs of the process, while fully recognizing that, much like a puzzle piece, they each belong to something much greater than themselves.

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In a time when the global Healthcare IT market continues to grow each day, minute or even second, RoundTable Strategic Solutions is experiencing its own growth.  As a local Baltimore based, nationally recognized full-service healthcare IT, operational change management and direct hire consulting firm, we understand the need to perform at the same rate and momentum as the rapidly growing industry.

In order to keep up with the growth, expected to reach $280.25 billion by 2021 with 15.9 percent growth (based on Report by Research N Reports), RoundTable is building its team to meet the demand in the healthcare market.  Just recently, RoundTable hired two industry experts to launch a Charlotte, NC office to accompany its Baltimore and Boston offices.  Additionally, the firm added a Director of Marketing and Communications to the team.

“Our growing team is thrilled to have Denise, Mike and Nicole join us,” said Scott Ketchen, Founder & Managing Partner.  “Denise has a keen insight into best practices, understands the challenges facing healthcare systems today, and will utilize those talents in strategizing our company’s growth plans.  With Mike’s experience and industry model development, we are certain that his role will assist RoundTable in providing healthcare systems nationwide with proven strategies to guide them in successful reorganizations and growth. Nicole’s integrated marketing and branding skill set and experience around scalable marketing methods will allow us to exploit our brand as we continue to grow and provide the best possible services to our clients.”

Below please find more details about the new hires.

Denise Cuddeback:

• Denise is a nationally recognized leader in Healthcare Operations and Solutions Design in areas such as Revenue Cycle, Care Coordination, Customer Relationship Management, Access & Contact Center, and Operational Efficiency leveraging Lean Six Sigma methodologies.
• She has demonstrated experience facilitating, innovating and executing on complex enterprise transformations.
• Denise brings more than 28 years of hands-on knowledge to the RoundTable team having previously served in leadership roles within large healthcare and services organizations.
• In her role, she will be leading solution and services expansion of the management consulting division, thought leadership, and overall day to day management of the RoundTable Management Consulting practice.
• Denise serves as a speaker at select industry engagements and has won several awards for her expertise and leadership such as “Innovator of the Year” in Customer Relationship Management, AMGA Acclaim Honoree, and “Innovation in Healthcare” Award.
• Prior to joining RoundTable Strategic Solutions, Denise held leadership positions at Envera Health in Richmond, VA as Vice President Engagement Solutions; and Carolinas Healthcare System in Charlotte, NC where her tenure expanded over 21 years.

Mike Schwob:

• With more than 10 years of industry knowledge and experience, Mike provides expertise in primary care strategic growth and marketing analytics.
• His principal professional focus areas include consumer-centric analytics, Access and convenience, unique primary care growth analytics, program evaluation and management, Marketing ROI attribution and CRM analytics.
• Mike is responsible for assisting the Senior Vice President, Management Consulting with day-to-day management, delivery and growth of the firm, client base, and CORE service lines.
• He oversees engagement planning, designing statements of work, executing and completing project deliverables and strategic client plans, while providing marketing thought leadership and promoting the IT and Management Consulting Services, specifically the Contact Center Transformation Service Offering.
• Mike previously served in leadership roles at Carolinas Healthcare Systems as the Director of Strategic Services, and Manager for Dickson Advanced Analytics in Charlotte, NC.
• Prior to his employment at Carolinas Healthcare Systems, Mike was an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC, serving as the lead analyst for the strategic business reorganizations of military population health programs to improve business operation (i.e., resourcing, budget, clinical practices, education and training, research) efficiencies.

Both Mike and Denise are based out of the company’s Charlotte, North Carolina office.

Nicole Halsey:

• With more than 18 years of marketing, public relations and branding experience, Nicole joins the RoundTable Strategic Solutions as Director of Marketing and Communications.
• Providing strategic guidance to clients in the healthcare, retail/consumer, education, real estate, entertainment and nonprofit industries, Nicole provides an array of experience.
• In her role at RoundTable, Nicole will oversee brand development and maintenance, messaging in the marketplace, lead generation, marketing automation campaigns, media relations, conference marketing, social media, speaking opportunities, special event planning, among other tactics.
• Nicole comes to RoundTable most recently from Weinberg Harris & Associates, a PR and Marketing agency in Baltimore as a Senior Account Director. During her 15-year tenures, she was responsible for creating and implementing strategic plans for clients such as The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Cirque du Soleil, Bozzuto, Verdence, and General Growth Properties.
• Nicole also worked at Warschawski and Eisner Petrou & Associates, designing and launching award-winning campaigns for clients such as Under Armour, Sylvan Learning Centers, Wartsila North America and 180s.

Nicole is located in the Baltimore office.

To learn more about our growing team, visit our team page.

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Organizational Challenge: PCP Claim Errors in Excess of 2M Two (2) Weeks Post Live

RoundTable Approach: Using the Claim Error Analysis Report, RoundTable identified a trend/pattern in the top four (4) Claim Errors that were driving a large volume of claim edits and A/R within Cerner Revenue Manager. Given our revenue cycle operations AND Cerner Patient Accounting application expertise, RoundTable was able to implement a “Cerner Rule” that modified the interface and immediately reduced the Claim Errors.

Impact & ROI: In two (2) weeks, the Clean Claim Rate Increased by 30% and resulted in a 2M Financial Improvement.
We would welcome the opportunity to share more about our firm and recent successes driving financial improvement and ROI to clients across the country!

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• Ability to remove non-essential POC functions from the office.
• Improves ability to focus on the “face to face” experience with the patient/customer.
• Decompresses local practice leadership.
• Ability to build leadership expertise in specific functions- call management, triage, training, other centralized functions.
• Improved Telephony platforms- On-hold messaging, call recording, customer surveys, performance data, etc.
• Scalable problem solving.

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RTSS has guided a number of large and complex client organizations in mitigating risk to revenue through Revenue Integrity efforts, including providing Interim Leadership, gap assessment, CDM analysis and consolidation, auditing, facilitating operational engagement, and providing knowledge transfer and mentorship to client internal resources.  Our methodology has identified several guiding principles which are key to executing an effective Revenue Integrity Strategy and Program:

• Compliance: Establishing a means by which changes to CMS rules and regulations can be tracked, and charge practices can be kept current and compliant.  This includes creating internal audit measures by which the organization can monitor reimbursement accuracy and defensibility against regulatory guidelines.
• Standardization:  Maximized payments are the result of correct pricing, charging, coding, and documentation.  Identifying and remediating charging errors or inconsistencies for services and/or supply items within the CDM is crucial.  For many organizations, this includes the consolidation of several disparate CDM’s into a single, unified CDM across an integrated delivery network.
• Cultural Collaboration: Clinicians are ultimately responsible for capturing optimal services and supply charges.  It is critical for an organization to ingrain collaboration between clinical and operational/financial stakeholders to educate clinicians regarding the connections between clinical process and charge capture and the importance of the downstream impact to maximized reimbursement.  The power of technology and data is irrelevant if the right charges are not captured at the point of service.
• Resources: Deploying personnel resources who have the right foundational knowledge to work in tandem with an organization’s technology resources and serve as a force multiplier.  Staff resources should have a depth of understanding regarding charging and reimbursement methodology.  Ongoing education and mentorship for Revenue Integrity resources are also key, as they are charged with disseminating related education organization-wide.

From the point of initial patient contact through the final collection of payment for service, Revenue Integrity touches all points along the care continuum.  A solid Revenue Integrity Strategy which maximizes revenue margins and compliance is the key driver to maintaining a sustainable revenue stream strong enough to withstand rising costs and declining reimbursements.

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1. Balance Centralization with Personalization
2. Do Not Centralize Broken Workflows
3. Keep the “Patient” at the Center of the Discussions & Decisions
4. This is an Investment in Clinical and Operational Infrastructure for the Future
5. Readiness for “Continuous Improvement”
6. Drive Towards a Return on Investment
   • Decrease Registration / Eligibility Denials
   • Increase Visit Volumes
   • Evaluate Scheduling Guidelines to Maximize Capacity
7. Schegistration will Drive Efficiency & Real-Time Eligibility Capabilities is Key
8. Standardization of Scheduling Templates, Guidelines, and Appointment Types is Critical
9. Prepare for Difficult Conversations and Over-Communicate with Front Line Teams
10. Without Provider, Organizational Support and Cultural Readiness the Effort and Good-Intended Approach Will Fail.

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