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Investor Newsletter August 2021
Author
Justin Long
Author
Joshua Harris
Monthly overview of recent KLAS insights, upcoming reports, and industry happenings.
Sept. 28–29
Stein Eriksen Lodge
PARK CITY, UTAH
To request additional information or for help registering for the event, contact the KLAS Investor Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.
From the “KLAS” Room
Segment Highlight: Automation/Digital Transformation in Healthcare Revenue Cycle
Robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and digital transformation are terms that KLAS has heard with increasing frequency from healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) personnel. Pressures from tight labor markets, inexperienced employees, inaccurate patient and payer data, shrinking department budgets, and market inefficiencies have made maximizing cash and revenue flow even more challenging.
Provider organizations are enthusiastically embracing RCM technology that takes on basic tasks such as denials management, claim statusing, low balance adjustments, and prior authorization, to name a few. Organizations that have adopted this technology often experience significant ROI through decreased errors and shortened collection cycles.
As the automation market continues to mature, provider organizations are looking to automation vendors such as Olive, UiPath, Boston Software Systems, Akasa, Accenture, and others to relieve some of the pressures and help them improve their RCM.
Prescriptive Selling
KLAS has found that one of the strongest indicators of future customer success is how the sales/contract process is structured. A key consideration factor for investors should be whether an HCIT vendor knows what client success looks like. Through hundreds of interviews with vendor and provider organizations, KLAS has identified five key principles of a successful sales program.
- Know clearly what client success looks like. Know what pieces must be in place to achieve success. Have a defined and replicable process for product and support delivery.
- During initial sales phase, assess customer wants, needs, and readiness. In many cases, this should occur even before the initial product demo.
- Be unwilling to budge on certain tools or processes needed for success. If a customer is not willing to conform, be willing to walk away.
- Properly incentivize the sales team. When a sales team is measured solely on a quota, they may sell customers something they can’t be successful with or overpromise to close a deal. Additional metrics to measure include things like customer retention, NPS, demonstration ratings, and depth of relationship.
- During the handoff between sales and implementation, align on what was sold, what the customer expects, and other need-to-knows. Ensure metrics for sales, implementation, and account management/support are customer-centric and not at odds with each other.
The "KLAS"ifieds
KLAS Emerging Technology
Each week, provider organizations receive dozens of inquiries from new companies eager to present their latest solutions. To help investors and provider organizations pull back the curtain, KLAS provides early performance data on emerging, disruptive, or innovative solutions that have not yet met the same strict data levels required to be fully ranked and rated by KLAS.
Recent Emerging Technology Report Sneak Peek
Specialty Reports Published July/August 2021
Enterprise Resource Planning 2021:
Move to the Cloud Prompts Evaluation of All ERP Options (A Decision Insights Report)
The enterprise resource planning (ERP) market continues to see high purchase energy. Although many healthcare organizations have already switched to cloud platforms, others still use superseded solutions and are faced with a tough decision: do they switch to the cloud offering from their incumbent vendor or take their chances with a new ERP partner? This report examines 65 recent or upcoming ERP purchase decisions to determine the main factors guiding organizations’ ERP platform selections.
Nurse & Staff Scheduling 2021:
First Look at Workload Balancing
As one of healthcare organizations’ largest operational costs, staffing is a top-of-mind concern. Though not yet widely used, workload balancing can provide insight into staffing gaps and help organizations make equitable assignments based on census data, patient acuity, and staff credentials. This report examines the customer experience of current workload balancing users to help organizations that are considering the tools understand the potential benefits and pitfalls and which nurse and staff scheduling vendors have experience with organizations of their size.
Upcoming KLAS Specialty & Emerging Technology Reports
Ambulatory Surgery Centers 2021
This report will provide an update on the EHR and ASC management technology used by ambulatory surgery centers. How well are vendors meeting key needs in this space?
Emerging Enterprise Post-Acute Platform Vendors: MatrixCare
Value-based reimbursements and changing regulations have put all eyes on the post–acute care world. MatrixCare, Netsmart, PointClickCare, and WellSky have made post–acute care product suites a top priority. This report—the first in a series on the use of a single post–acute care vendor’s solutions across multiple care settings—focuses on MatrixCare.
Middle East EMR
Many healthcare organizations in the Middle East and some in Africa have made EMR purchase decisions over the last five years (2016–2020). This report will examine the customer satisfaction, market share, and recent wins and market energy of EMR vendors in the Middle East and Africa regions. Compared to KLAS’ previous report on EMRs in the Middle East (published in 2019), this study includes performance data on a significantly higher number of vendors, providing more expansive insights particularly into the Middle East market.
Patient Financial Experience Pulse Check
Interest in patient financial engagement (PFE) solutions is high as provider organizations seek to improve their revenue cycle and the patient financial experience. While future KLAS research will explore more vendor differentiating insights, this report provides an early pulse check on the potential PFE solutions have to elevate the patient experience while improving provider organization revenue (a rare combination). A small amount of data from KLAS’ standard software performance evaluation is also included to provide context as to how each vendor is performing in the market.
Population Health Management Downside Risk Leaders
In the United States, just 10% of the average healthcare organization’s revenue comes from downside risk contracts. However, several health systems are ahead of the curve, and their valuable insights on adopting downside risk can help peers figure out how to move the needle on value-based reimbursement (VBR). KLAS worked with population health management (PHM) vendors to identify which of their customers are most advanced in adoption of downside risk contracts and then conducted interviews with top executives at 15 of these organizations.
DrFirstFirst Look 2021
This report examines the experiences of early adopters of two DrFirst solutions: Medication Management Suite (MMS) and Backline. The first section of this report explores how MMS and Backline work together; the remainder of the report examines each solution separately.
Real Time Medical Systems First Look 2021
Real Time Medical Systems’ Interventional Analytics solution provides actionable clinical and reimbursement performance data—pulled directly from the post–acute care EHR—to skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, ACOs, and payers. This report aims to validate the experience of Real Time’s customers.
ViTel Net First Look 2021
ViTel Net vCareCommand is a platform that allows healthcare organizations to connect multiple solutions while configuring a specific workflow for each service line. The aim of this report is to validate the configured workflows, interoperability, and outcomes achieved by healthcare organizations using the ViTel Net platform.
To make a purchase or find more information on KLAS reports, contact the KLAS Investment Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.
Market Activities Impacting Investments
National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force
The White House announced the creation of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force, which will advise lawmakers about AI policy and research issues. The task force will “write the road map for expanding access to critical resources and educational tools that will spur AI innovation and economic prosperity nationwide.”
Digital Health Companies Set Investment Record—$14.7 Billion in First Half of 2021
Several companies also went public, but those that have gone public since 2020 have recently underperformed the NASDAQ.
Venrock Report Signals the Difficulties for Digital Health Start-ups
Perhaps signaling an expected end to the bull run, respondents to a Venrock survey predict that the enterprise value for almost all companies on the list would be lower by year end.
AWS Creates Digital Accelerator
AWS has created an accelerator for healthcare start-ups. The first cohort with be with KidsX to focus on pediatric solutions.
KLAS Digital Health Investment Symposium (DHIS) 2021
Don’t miss out! Reserve your seat for the exclusive annual conference held in beautiful Park City, UT at the luxurious Stein Erickson Lodge, September 28–29.
To request additional information or for help registering for the event, contact the KLAS Investor Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.
Designer
Natalie Jamison
Project Manager
Joshua Harris
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.