Medical Practice Excellence: Pathways Conference

Content: Patient Access
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis    

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 
 
Speaker(s): John Tollerson, DO, chief medical information officer, Kalispell Regional Healthcare
 
Managing big data is critical to any organization's health and patients, but these initiatives can drain time and resources. One way to increase efficiency, measure progress and improve performance is using analytics to make data more meaningful and provide vital insights about organizational performance. The speaker will share how his organization has used analytical dashboards to inform decisions, transform approach to care, and improve outcomes. He will identify how using data-driven decision-making has led to increased productivity, standardization of RVU processes, closing of care gaps and referral loops, reducing ER bounce backs and hospital admissions, and better continuity of care. He will also focus on how analytics helped improve transparency between the hospital system and physicians and was a catalyst for clinical improvement efforts involving proper documentation and clinical workflow transformation. Finally, he will share how analytics provide a powerful motivator for staff to rally around successes and use that momentum to tackle other organizational issues. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine analytics to make data more meaningful and provide vital insights into organizational performance. 
• Outline new workflows and documentation processes with analytical reporting to achieve outcomes. 
• Prepare a collaborative work environment to improve clinical results  

Content: Strategic Leadership 
Intermediate | Traditional | Application  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0                

Speaker(s): Janis Coffin, DO, FAACP, FACMPE, CCE, chief transformation officer, Augusta University Health System 

Debbie Fisher, RN, MHA, chief operating officer, NavCare 

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a perfect storm for primary care physicians with high-risk patients and populations. Many practices were already considering adding digital remote patient monitoring solutions as a way to transition to value-based care, expand access and better manage chronic conditions at home. The pandemic accelerated those decisions. With new telehealth technologies emerging daily, new CMS CPT® codes, the CARES Act and safety protocols, finding the resources to help monitor, collect and manage the data to make real-time clinical care decisions presented another challenge. Join the speakers, for an interactive, real-life story on how Dr. Coffin implemented RPM for her parents and patients and combined it with a team-based care management approach for lasting benefits. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:   

• Discover telehealth and RPM data trends that improve outcomes and meet QPP and MIPS measures 
• Produce a positive impact via telehealth, RPM and team-based chronic care management for the staff and patient experience 
• Use telehealth and RPM value-based models for improved practice ROI 

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Intermediate | Analysis | Traditional

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Justin Chamblee, MAcc, CPA, executive vice president, Coker Group

The 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule contains some of the most significant changes to wRVUs seen since the creation of the resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS). Most notably, E/M wRVUs increased materially. This, coupled with the decrease in the Medicare conversion factor, means that changes will abound with respect to the measurement of productivity and actual reimbursement across specialties. As many compensation models and other services agreements are tied to wRVU production, it's quite likely that changes in wRVU-based compensation will not trend with reimbursement. This will put pressure on healthcare organizations through diminished financial performance. Without some mitigating efforts, this could prove detrimental to the financial health of organizations. In this session, the speaker will explore the changes in the final rule, look at key trends by specialty, analyze the impact on various compensation arrangements and, most importantly, provide guidance on responding.   

 This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine the core changes brought about by the 2021 final rule 
• Analyze the impact the final rule will have on various compensation arrangements and overall financial performance of healthcare organizations 
• Outline key steps organizations can take to respond to the changes in the final rule and create a pathway for financial health. 

Content: Financial Analysis  
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Shawntea Moheiser, CMPE, CMOM, owner, ITS Healthcare, LLC  

Kem Tolliver, CMPE, CPC, CMOM, president, Medical Revenue Cycle Specialists  

The 2021 CMS Final Physician Fee Schedule ushered in the most significant changes to the documentation of Evaluation and Management codes since 1997, RVU revaluations, significant reimbursement changes, telehealth billing changes and more. Some changes are intended to last beyond the COVID Public Health Emergency (PHE) whereas others are projected to end when the PHE does. This session will review the changes from the 2021 final rule.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Analyze 2021 CMS PFS final rule 
• Outline the 2021 CMS fee schedule and its role in overall reimbursement oversight 
• Identify the impact that the 2021 CPT coding changes has on provider documentation 

Content: Data Learning Lab
Traditional | Basic | Comprehension        

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Matt Seefeld, executive vice president, revenue cycle, MedEvolve

The healthcare revenue cycle is a notoriously complex process, frequently riddled with inefficiencies and manual processes. Revenue cycle leaders are always searching for ways to overcome key challenges, including automating manual processes, like denials management, inefficient patient financial clearance processes and collecting from patients with rising deductibles. Additionally, a lack of data transparency into any of these areas can cause bottlenecks and potential revenue loss. This session will focus on how provider organizations overcome these challenges through automation and workflow improvement and highlight the KPIs busy executives should be monitoring to stay on top of their revenue cycles.

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Describe tactics to help optimize patient financial clearance, self-pay collections and denials.
• Identify specific KPIs to monitor, and how often, to ensure a healthy revenue cycle.
• Explain how practices can benefit from using workflow automation and analytics to streamline operations, drive process improvement and improve financial performance.

 

Speaker(s): Katie Jobst , Regional Account Manager, VerityStream

Steve Smith, Director, Business Development, VerityStream

Take a tour of CredentialStream and CredentialMyDoc and see how they can help you effortlessly manage the provider lifecycle while speeding up your revenue cycle. We'll show you how they can help manage:

• Remote work
• Telehealth
• Regulations and accreditations
• Revenue loss and risks
• Quality of care

Let's develop a roadmap to get you growing.

Speaker: Kenan Korfez, account executive, Paymerang 

Imagine reclaiming 400+ hours a year for your department. Refocusing efforts away from payment processing and reconciliation to more strategic priorities like operational efficiency and financial controls. Imagine doing all that with just the touch of a button. And paying nothing out of pocket to gain that efficiency. Now imagine turning a profit on top of all that. Paymerang makes it possible. Join us for this 15-minute Solution Spotlight to see how!

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Traditional | Intermediate | Application

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0        
              
Speaker(s): Sherri Harris, regional manager, scheduling, Sacred Heart Health System 

Joe Polaris, senior vice president, product and technology, R1 RCM 

Patients and referring providers expect a convenient and streamlined experience. Sacred Heart Ascension developed a plan to offer end-to-end digitization for both constituents. The new process leverages digital self-service for patients and rules-based logic and workflow management to reduce manual work and staff intervention with tasks in prior authorization, scheduling, financial clearance and registration. Sacred Heart transformed the care coordination and revenue cycle journey by giving patient access teams and referring providers tools to work smarter. These changes have driven meaningful KPI improvements and helped achieve an 80% increase in orders to more than 8,500 procedures monthly. Attendees will learn how Sacred Heart Health Systems implemented practical strategies to encourage referring providers' adoption of technology, improved provider communication, streamlined patient scheduling and created a better patient experience using self-service tools. 
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Employ more efficient electronic order submission and scheduling practices 
• Use a provider self-scheduling/real-time booking model to ensure patients don't leave care site without knowing next steps 
• Manage a front-end revenue cycle and prior authorization services to save time for referring and rendering providers. 

Content: Strategic Leadership 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Aimee Greeter, MPH, FACHE, senior vice president, Coker Group

Healthcare entity transactions have evolved over the years, encompassing varying models, structures, and affiliations. This session will use case studies from various mergers and acquisitions to demonstrate the evaluation, negotiation, and decision processes practices experienced before finalizing a transaction.
Join this session to avoid common mistakes made during the due diligence process and to ensure the decision you chose matches the practice's goals and expectations.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Analyze historical and current trends in transactions involving physicians and medical practices  
• Point out common characteristics of M&A deals, including valuation methodologies, economic impacts on sellers, post-transaction operations, governance, integration, and personnel impact 
• Outline the practice's goals, expectations, and resources before buying or selling a medical practice 

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Interactive | Intermediate | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Nate Moore, CPA, MBA, FACMPE, chief executive officer, Moore Solutions Inc

How much of your revenue cycle can be influenced before a patient even walks through your door? What proactive actions can practice administrators take to front-load revenue cycle success? Think of things like reducing no shows, ensuring procedures have pre-authorization, and filling open appointment slots, but there is much more. Have you considered an appointment scrubber that can data mine upcoming appointments for potential issues such as patients in a collection status, patients with insurance plan issues, patients with scheduling problems, or patients in a global period? Appointment data can also show recently canceled appointments that could be filled or blocked provider templates that need be addressed. Keep digging, and appointment data could reveal providers who do not have enough upcoming new patient appointments to generate budgeted procedures, or providers that take too long to get an appointment with, or providers that have cancelled and then lost patient appointments. Join a unique conversation about managing provider capacity, efficiency, and throughput using data your practice management system already knows but may not be clearly telling you. See and discuss examples of actual reports ranging from reducing no show appointments, managing provider templates, mining appointment data, and much more. The audience will select and prioritize the topics we discuss, so come prepared with questions your practice is raising and insight you would like to share. 
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss actual reports practices currently use to drive revenue from appointment data 
• Improve your providers’ productivity without having them work longer or harder 
• Drive practice revenue by optimizing scheduling strategies 

Content: Revenue Cycle Manangement

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Panelists: Gautam Char, president and chief executive officer, WhiteSpace Health

Cindy Nyberg, CPA, CMPE, chief financial officer and strategic planning consultant, Fulcrum Strategies

Kyle Fromm, RN, JD, MHA, CHC, CHRC, head of compliance and revenue cycle management, Advent

Andrew Swanson, MBA, CMPE, vice president, industry insights, MGMA

Moderator: Chris Harrop, senior editorial manager, MGMA

Medical practices need to understand emerging revenue cycle trends and how their performance compares to their peers. Practices in the top quartile of performance regularly engage in data analysis and benchmarking to identify trends and inform strategic decisions that further improve their collections.

In this session, attendees will learn how their practice’s revenue cycle management (RCM) compares to industry averages. An analysis of revenue cycle benchmark data collected from 2019 to February 2021 will be presented by industry consultants, MGMA leadership and data science experts to provide context to the data and the levers that effect change.

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Analyze the latest RCM benchmark data
• Breakdown how your revenue cycle compares to peer practices nationwide
• Examine areas where you can improve your revenue position

Content: Data Learning Lab  

Continuing Education Credit Not Available For This Session

Speaker(s): Jared Pelo, MD, CMIO, Nuance Healthcare 

Dave Pashayan, senior partner, marketing, Nuance Healthcare

Physicians struggle with administrative burdens, leaving them less time to deliver quality care to patients. Many providers spend two hours on administrative tasks for every hour of patient care. The recent influx of telehealth has only added to the administrative complexity by adding new documentation requirements. Ambient clinical intelligence is a technology that can alleviate some of these burdens for providers.  Join this session to experience a live stream demonstration of the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience (Nuance DAX) and explore how this technology can streamline the patient encounter documentation process.  

This session will demonstrate:  

• An example of ambient clinical intelligence  
• Technology that saves time, increases physician productivity and reduces burnout 
• Processes to greatly improve financial outcomes 

Speaker: Jeff Takacs, director, digital content, MGMA

MGMA offers many educational opportunities to grow professionally, whether it is solving practice issues using MGMA books, gaining knowledge from MGMA Ed online courses, or creating new content to help the industry. Join this session to learn more about how to engage with  MGMA’s educational offerings.

Speaker: Hannah Poertner, data specialist, MGMA
 
Are you getting the most from the data in MGMA’s DataDive? Join this session for a tutorial on using the Pro Report Builder to help you organize your data to make better decisions in your practice.  

Speaker: Jill McClay, account manager, organizational membership, MGMA

Details coming soon!

Brought to you by: Nuance | Olive | RingCentral

When we asked members to name their biggest challenge in their practice: Here’s what we heard, “How do I overcome tele-health challenges such as EHR integration, HIPAA compliance, staffing, work flows, etc.in a post-pandemic environment?” “How do I reduce my days in A/R?” “How do we use our practice data to help change the way we operate?” And finally, “How do I reduce my no-show rates and improve overall patient engagement?” If your practice is facing these same obstacles and you find yourself asking similar questions, this 15-minutes is for you! Three valued partners step forward with answers.
 

Content: Patient Access  
Intermediate | Traditional | Analysis

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0                

Speaker(s): James M. Thomas, DDS, founder, health.latch  

Children who have tongue-tie—a condition that restricts the tongue's range of motion because the tissue connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth is too short—experience a host of challenges. They struggle to breastfeed and, as they get older, may have trouble chewing solid food, developing speech problems, and having airway-related issues that can lead to ear infections, snoring, and restless sleep. But when a baby isn't feeding properly, it's essential to help parents figure out the right next step as quickly as possible. To improve patient access, the speaker implemented a HIPAA-compliant virtual care communications platform that has enabled his specialty practice to engage with patients in the manner they're most comfortable with — by text message. Now his patients can securely communicate with him and his practice in real-time, including exchanging documents and images without downloading an app or log in to a portal. This speaker will describe how implementing a virtual care platform provided his practice with a competitive differentiator and increased patient access to services by successfully integrating telehealth into clinical workflows to see more patients and provide smooth care transitions. 
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine new methods to improve patient access and continuity of care 
• Outline the steps of integrating a telehealth platform with existing practice management systems, help triage families and streamline intake
• Point out challenges and best practices for leveraging asynchronous text messaging in a medical practice 

Content: Strategic Leadership   
Intermediate | Traditional | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Laura Jacquin, RN, managing director, BRG 

Peter Altschuler, director, BRG 
 
Patient access changed dramatically, post-COVID-19 and continues to evolve. The pandemic showed how technology and flexible models are critical to sustaining patient access. It also exposed the gaps that many medical groups must overcome to embrace those technologies and maximize resources. Scheduling, in particular, presents real opportunities for meaningful, long-term improvement. This presentation will provide insights into how AI technology can streamline scheduling practices in the future and recommendations on successfully embedding those technologies in operations to improve access. The presenters will discuss the operational requirements to successfully deploy AI, including optimized processes and aligned physicians and staff. Presenters will also share how medical groups can optimize scheduling and access today, and lay the foundation for AI in the future, by using advanced analytics to pinpoint provider practice patterns and patient behavior.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Analyze traditional barriers to patient access and scheduling and lessons learned from increased virtual visits 
• Point out how advanced analytics and AI can be used in patient scheduling 
• Collect institutional memory from legacy front desk reception staff and schedulers to address needs of high cost patients    

Content: Revenue Cycle Management 
Traditional | Advanced | Synthesis

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0  

Speaker(s): Doral Jacobsen, FACMPE, chief executive officer, Prosper Beyond, VBC Inc.; independent consultant, MGMA

For medical practices to successfully position for the future, they need healthy revenue streams. Practices routinely need to make incremental revenue increases over time, largely from payer contracts. This session defines a step-by-step process to build an effective strategy for the payer contracting journey, including the top 10 tools used by successful practices. The speaker will provide tactical guidance by reviewing those tools, including next-generation value proposition development, value-based care model checklist, proposal development grid, termination evaluation tool and strategy management matrix. Participants will work together to identify critical components in a payer contracting strategy and brainstorm approaches to advance successful negotiations. The session concludes with best practices describing the characteristics and activities/tools top performers use in payer contracting. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Develop effective payer proposals 
• Design an effective renegotiation strategy 
• Construct a plan to position your practice for future payment models 

Content: Financial Analysis 
Overview | Traditional | Comprehension 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Drew Voytal, MPA, associate director, government affairs, MGMA 

Matt Devino, MPH, associate director, government affairs, MGMA 

2021 will mark a significant shift in policy direction as a new presidential administration and congress begin to address healthcare issues in Washington. In this session, representatives from MGMA Government Affairs will provide an update on current and potential policy developments impacting medical practices. Specific topics will include 2021 implementation details for the Medicare Quality Payment Program, Medicare payment updates, and status updates on federal COVID-19 financial relief programs, like the Provider Relief Fund and Paycheck Protection Program.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Identify key regulatory proposals  
• Discuss legislative issues impacting medical groups  
• Describe MGMA advocacy initiatives 

Content: Data Learning Lab

Continuing Education Credit Not Available For This Session

Speaker(s): Lauren Jones, senior data strategist, MGMA
 
An MGMA data expert will provide an overview of MGMA DataDive features and explain how you can best use the data to benchmark your medical practice. Unlock the full power of MGMA DataDive to help improve your operational efficiency and profits. This demonstration will include a live question and answer session to answer attendee questions.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Describe the features of MGMA DataDive
• Identify important benchmarks for your practice

Moderator: Craig Wiberg, MLS, MBA, senior editor, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the patient access issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address patient access issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Chris Harrop, senior editorial manager, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the strategic issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address strategic issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Jeff Takacs, director, digital content, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the revenue cycle management issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address revenue cycle management issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Daniel Williams, MBA, MSEM, senior editor, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the financial analysis issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to use financial analysis to solve management issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Andrew Hajde, CMPE, assistant director, association content, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the how DataDive is being use address challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to use DataDive to address issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Content: Patient Access 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0
   
Speaker(s): Tim Gronniger, chief executive officer and president, Caravan Health 

Primary Care practices have had to adapt to the changing healthcare landscape to remain viable. Value-based care initiatives have reshaped how care is delivered and reimbursed. The COVID-19 pandemic has added operational complexities that challenge even the best-run practices.  Even with these challenges, there are great opportunities for practices that are willing to reshape their organizations. Join this session to learn how Accountable Care Organizations are achieving improved patient and financial outcomes.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine key value-based care opportunities from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 
• Analyze the value of implementing new prevention and wellness initiatives
• Outline best practices in developing a team-based model that improves patient outcomes and provider satisfaction 

Content: Strategic Leadership 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Laurie Baedke, MHA, FACHE, FACMPE, faculty and director, healthcare leadership programs, Creighton University; speaker; author; podcast host, The Growth Edge 

Often, the greatest challenge of leadership is not simply the execution, but rather the ability to intentionally prioritize those tasks that require our time and best attention and energy. Even the most productive professionals can find themselves not hitting the target if their efforts aren’t properly aimed. In this candid and practical session, we’ll take a peek at the habits of high-performing executives, identifying opportunities to optimize our professional performance, and reviewing current research on the topics of purpose, habits, and goal-setting.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Point out the traps that distract us from achieving our goals  
• Prepate goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound  
• Outline productive personal and professional habits   

Content: Revenue Cycle Management 
Interactive | Intermediate | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0
 
Speaker(s): Nate Moore, CPA, MBA, FACMPE, chief executive officer, Moore Solutions Inc.  

How have your practice operations changed since the COVID-19 epidemic?  Your workforce, patient schedules and overall practice operations likely look dramatically different than they did a few months ago.  New realities have forced administrators to take an in-depth look at the metrics they track and the dashboards that can best communicate the vital information.   Join this interactive session to learn how practices have adjusted their business to remain viable and how these changes have necessitated using a new set of operational benchmarks.    

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Breakdown ways practices are changing how, when, and what they measure in response to COVID-19  
• Analyze remote employees' productivity as they were before the pandemic
• Rearrange patient schedules to ensure limited appointment slots fill with surgery, procedure, or ancillary businesses

Content: Financial Analysis
Intermediate | Application | Traditional

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Amy Lee, MBA, MBHA, MJ, CHC, FACMPE, vice president, chief operating officer, Central Maine Medical Group 

Ronald Spoltore, MBA, board of directors, American Health Connection 
 
Nonclinical call centers often are deemed cost centers without practice leaders questioning their real ROI and how they affect bottom-line performance. This session will focus on the key characteristics that drive maximum quantitative and qualitative ROI in patient communications. Attendees will learn transformative methods used by medical groups to improve provider productivity by leveraging existing assets with new and innovative business intelligence tools. The session will highlight day-to-day challenges in scheduling, referral services, pre-registration, financial clearance, insurance verification and no-show management that can be optimized without costly investments in technology and resources.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Discover tools to measure the ROI of patient communications via call center 
• Produce maximum provider productivity through call center optimization 
• Use KPIs essential to achieving optimal bottom-line results 

Content: Data Learning Lab
Traditional |Intermediate | Analysis

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0
 
Speaker(s): Brandt Jewell, senior vice president, Coker Group 

Medical groups of all sizes and levels of integration struggle to use data to drive action and accountability from the C-suite to the front desk. This session focuses on developing a data-driven culture that will improve operational and financial performance, providing options and examples of proven metrics and tactics. The speaker will discuss performance metrics and ways to use data as the backbone of consistency and develop a high-performing culture of accountability and address tactics for actionable reporting and consistent communication across organizational levels. Most importantly is will address how to engage providers and employees in ownership of data and outcomes. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Outline components and management principles for developing a data-driven culture within a high-performing medical group
• Examine key performance indicators and targets for various areas: financial, provider productivity, and compensation, patient access, revenue cycle, and non-provider staffing
• Breakdown tactics for using data to manage staff and engage providers as leaders, mentors, and champions with common group-level objectives

Speaker: Meghan Wong, MS, director, data solutions, MGMA

Are you getting the most from the data in MGMA’s DataDive? Join this session to overview common uses, misuses and recommendations for reviewing and benchmarking with data from MGMA DataDive.

Speaker: Chris Harrop, senior editorial manager, MGMA

Are you looking for new opportunities to share your expertise with the industry? Join this session to overview the MGMA publication portfolio and learn how you can help advance the industry by sharing your expertise.  

Speaker: Tracy Bird, FACMPE, CPC, CPMA, CEMC, CPC-I, pesident, Medical Practice Advisors

Join this session to find out more about the American College of Medical Practice Executive’s Body of Knowledge and how it is used as a framework to support and guide Certificates, Certification, Fellowship in medical practice management.
 

Speaker(s): Robert Zimmerman, president and chief operating officer, Remedics 

Scott Grabowski, chief technology officer, Remedics 

In today's ultra-competitive physician practice landscape, many groups are feeling the pressure to find new ways to remain viable by either forming relationships with large IDN's/health systems or selling their practice(s) to private equity. However, a third and perhaps more compelling choice is emerging -- Physician Aggregation, where several practice groups merge to form a large, more competitive organization while maintaining practice autonomy at a business unit level. Although most providers understand this need to remain competitive, they do not always realize that this can be accomplished without the need to change EMR and PM systems. This would lead to the costly implementation of new technology that replaces the solution at the very core of their business.
 
Please join us to see how many practices have improved their overall revenues by 5-7% by aggregating practice groups, while maintaining the autonomy of running their own business unit leveraging their own HIS investments through use of the ReMedics BPO solution. This platform helps capture, validate, and integrate client data and documentation to help manage several aspects of the revenue cycle; thereby providing sustainable cash flow improvements while tracking key performance metrics to help run your business more efficiently.
 

Speaker: Zachary Sikes, PurchaseClinic

Save up to 20% on the supplies you use each month with MGMA BestPrice. As a no-cost member benefit, MGMA BestPrice connects independent physician practices to lower prices on medical and office supplies. This program includes your McKesson, Henry Schein, Cardinal and Medline distribution. Join us for a quick meeting to learn how you enroll and start saving!

Content: Strategic Leadership
Interactive | Basic | Comprehension 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Debbie Fisher, RN, MHA, chief operating officer, NavCare 

Adrienne Lloyd, MHA, FACHE,  chief executive officer and founder, Optimize Healthcare; consultant, MGMA; Certified John Maxwell Leadership Coach; DISC Trainer; Lean/Six Sigma Expert 

Tim Gronniger, chief executive officer and president, Caravan Health 

Moderator: Daniel Williams, senior editor, MGMA  

Dig deeper into the challenges of operations management in this interactive panel discussion with speakers from conference sessions. Come with questions, tools and solutions to help drive excellence in patient access in this interactive session.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss operational challenges for medical practices 
• Identify strategies to improve operational performance

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Interactive | Basic | Comprehension 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Doral Jacobsen, FACMPE, chief executive officer, Prosper Beyond, VBC Inc.; independent consultant, MGMA  

Shawntea Moheiser, CMPE, CMOM, owner, ITS Healthcare, LLC  

Kem Tolliver, CMPE, CPC, CMOM, president, Medical Revenue Cycle Specialists  

Moderator: Craig Wiberg, MLS, MBA, sr. editor, MGMA

Dig deeper into the financial challenges facing practices and discuss the solutions practices are using to overcome them. Join speakers from the conference sessions in this interactive panel discussion. Come with questions, tools and solutions to help drive excellence in financial management in this interactive session. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss the big challenges face by medical practices 
• Identify strategies to overcome the challenges face by medical practices

Content: Data Learning Lab
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Neal Barker, MBA, partner, HSG Advisors 

Terry McWilliams, MD, MSJ, FAAFP, director and chief clinical consultant, HSG Advisors 

Eric Andreoli, MBA, director, HSG Advisors 

All hospital-owned medical groups' long-term success depends on having productive, engaged and satisfied physicians and advanced practice providers.  Although many issues affect employed health care providers, few are more impactful on the individual and the organization than compensation. In acknowledging that truth, organizations must develop and execute a sustainable compensation strategy. This session will first discuss provider compensation trends and the factors driving organizations to reconsider their provider compensation strategies. It will then breakdown examples of best practices for developing a compensation framework based on an organization's progress towards value.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Outline the forces driving many hospitals to re-evaluate provider compensation strategies 
• Analyze the importance of having a compensation strategy that evolves with and supports an organization's progress toward value and high-performance
• Examine best practices for a provider compensation strategy,  including balancing productivity and nonproductivity-based incentives, selecting appropriate rates and building structures to incentivize team-based care

Content area: Patient Access 
Traditional | Intermediate | Application  

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Lea Chatham, director, marketing program, SR Health by Solutionreach 

The data tells us a lot has changed in the last year about how we connect and engage with patients. Find out what your peers say is working now, and how they are using tools like text messaging to better engage patients across the journey and get schedules full again. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Discover how the post-COVID appointment workflow and how it has changed
• Use a compliant text-first approach to patient communication

Content: Revenue Cycle Management 
Advanced | Traditional | Evaluation

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Ed Kenney, director, revenue cycle managment, Relatient 

Christy Bailey, RHIT, CPB, vice president, client strategy and revenue operations, University Physicians Association 

Provider RCM once revolved around commercial payers; now, patients contribute significant amounts to overall revenue, and collecting patient responsibility is crucial. With telehealth, consumerism and the COVID-19 pandemic adding complexity to RCM, an effective, patient-centered billing experience is more important than ever. This session will share how a Tennessee-based organization identified self-service options for patients that lifted manual burdens off practice and billing staff, leveraging the same habits and behaviors patients already use in their daily lives. This session will explore traditional paper-based processes need to be replaced by mobile-first communication strategies and text-to-pay options that can redefine the patient billing experience. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Assess traditional RCM processes for improvements on limited results or extensive manual work 
• Evaluate consumer-driven payment strategies that reduce copays, balances and bad debt 
• Establish a plan for evaluating, prioritizing and implementing a patient-centered billing strategy  

 

Content: Financial Analysis 
Basic | Traditional | Comprehension

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Jeff Williams, MD, assistant medical informatics officer, practicing pediatrician, Hattiesburg Clinic  

Constance Cain, clinical analyst, Hattiesburg Clinic  Hattiesburg Clinic  

At the Hattiesburg Clinic, along with its 60 satellite locations, providers were using speech recognition technology to reduce their reliance on human transcription, but the on-premise server approach was causing frustration among the care teams. Workstations running the software were hard to find, and clinicians had difficulty accessing their voice profiles, creating delays in their documentation. Providers needed a faster, more convenient way to document the patient visit.  The IT department decided to switch to a documentation solution connected directly to the Epic EHR via the Cloud. Physicians can now securely speak their notes on the patient from any device and location and have them available for the care teams to access the EHR in real-time. In this session, speakers will detail the transition to the Cloud improved the physician workflow experience, accelerated care coordination, added cost-savings and shortened the billing cycle.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Identify documentation challenges
• Describe how to migrate the documentation process from onsite workstations to the Cloud 
• Discuss the benefits of Cloud-based documentation 

Speaker: Jay Whitten, data services supervisor, MGMA
 
Did you know there is more to MGMA data than Physician Compensation benchmarks? Join this session to find out what other essential industry benchmarks are reported in the MGMA DataDive Cost and Revenue data set.

Speaker(s): Andrew Hajde, CMPE, assistant director, association content, MGMA

Cristy Good, CMPE, MPH, MBA, CPC, senior industry advisor, MGMA

Join this session to learn more about how this comprehensive practice assessment can help you identify and improve specific areas of your practice.

Speaker: Kiernan Henderson, member engagement coordinator, MGMA

Moderator(s): Amanda Jensen, program manager, MGMA

Martha Huckaby, MSW, senior manager, member engagement, MGMA

Did you know there is a way to ask industry peers your most pressing practice management questions? Join this session to find out to make the most out of MGMA’s online membership community.

Content: Strategic leadership 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Adrienne Lloyd, MHA, FACHE,  chief executive officer and founder, Optimize Healthcare; consultant, MGMA; Certified John Maxwell Leadership Coach; DISC Trainer; Lean/Six Sigma Expert 

Even once the pandemic subsides, many organizations will likely have large components of their teams that will remain virtual for significant portions of their roles.  Managing a remote team is challenging and requires different strategies and techniques.  Recent studies report that remote workers have increased their work hours, while communication and productivity have sometimes even decreased. Stress levels are at an all-time high for employees and leaders alike as they struggle to focus, stay connected, and then also disconnect at the end of the workday. This session will discuss strategies to keep your team engaged, productive, and collaborative while appreciating the whole person and the unique environments that have evolved.   The session will share how to create and maintain the shared vision in the forefront while promoting awareness and accountability of each unit's or team member's role.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Diagram a clear vision for yourself and your team of what the "new normal" can and should look like 
• Outline clear expectations and connections to the team and organizational goals.  Learn methods to create engagement while decreasing redundancy and communication gaps.  
• Examine the need to draw boundaries to prevent burnout while maintaining communication and productivity

Content: Strategic leadership  
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0
 
Speaker(s): Ali Russo, chief information officer, FAIR Health 

Telehealth has played a major role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the forced experiment of providing telemedicine may have a long-lasting impact on the U.S. healthcare industry. Financial management professionals must plan for telehealth's changing face, including modifications to reimbursement models and the expansion of telehealth utilization in private practices. In this session, attendees will examine trends and patterns in telehealth, including regional variation and top diagnoses and procedures performed. Using the nation's largest repository of private healthcare claims data, the session will present billed charges and allowed amounts for codes used to report telehealth services, including the top procedures provided by telehealth for respiratory infections, mental health visits and physical therapy. The data will also illuminate cost differences between in-person office visits and those provided by telehealth.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Point out how government policy has affected the penetration and proliferation of telehealth services before during the COVID-19 pandemic 
• Distinguish the top diagnoses and top procedures performed in a telehealth setting 
• Examine how commercial health plans are reimbursing telehealth services on an out-of-network and in-network basis and how reimbursements vary by geographic region 

Content: Revenue Cycle Management 
Intermediate | Traditional | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Penny Noyes, CHC, president, Health Business Navigators  

Amanda Hilbert, director, payer contracting, Health Business Navigators

Reviewing dozens of pages in old agreements or new proposals might seem daunting, but the key is to take a strategic look. In this session, attendees will learn how to assess a payer agreement, new or proposed, in about 15 minutes. The speaker will highlight key provisions, where you can typically find them, whether a payer can or might change the ugly stuff (or how to manage, if not), and how to jump-start a renegotiation or request for changes. Attendees will learn to quickly identify and assess issues with effective date, initial term, termination without cause, products, amendments, notice and rate exhibit. The session will also include a comprehensive checklist of other provisions to understand in contracting strategy.   
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Outline key provisions needed for a critical payer contract review  
• Examine existing and proposed payer contracts for high-impact provisions 
• Breakdown specific provisions for renegotiation in a payer contract  

Content: Financial Analysis 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Timothy Smith, CPA/ABV, principal, TS Healthcare Consulting LLC

The new Stark regulations provide revised definitions of fair market value and general market value to use for regulatory compliance purposes. They also include CMS’ most significant and comprehensive discussion of valuation and survey data usage in the history of the Stark law. In this session, you’ll get an in-depth and systematic look at CMS’ new guidance on fair market value and how survey data should and should not be used for valuation purposes. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine the key aspects of the revised definitions for fair market value and general market value
• Outline CMS’ guidance on survey data usage for fair market value
• Breakdown how the new Stark regulations affect your organization’s FMV compliance program

Content: Data Learning Lab
Traditional | Basic |Comprehension

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Juli Forde, director, strtegic partnerships, ZOLL Data Systems

Payment uncertainty in the U.S. healthcare system has become a  burden for all.  Underpayments, denials, rising patient responsibility and regulatory mandates have pushed many providers to the brink.  This session will offer proven strategies to help healthcare providers protect their earned revenue and reduce the administrative burden to collect while improving the patient experience.

This session will demonstrate how to:

• Discuss how accurate and timely information around the patient’s unique financial characteristics positively impacts the patient experience and increases collections
• Describe methodologies from those who have demonstrated success in revenue protection and payer accountability
• Identify workflows to problems like underpayments, denials, patient affordability and charitable care

Moderator: Craig Wiberg,  MLS, MBA, senior editor, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the patient access issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address patient access issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Chris Harrop, senior editorial manager, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the strategic issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address strategic issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

 

Moderator: Jeff Takacs, director, digital content, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the revenue cycle management issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to address revenue cycle management issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Daniel Williams, MBA, MSEM, senior editor, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the financial analysis issues, trends and challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to use financial analysis to solve management issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Moderator: Andrew Hajde, CMPE, assistant director, association content, MGMA

Some of the best ideas and education comes from your peers. Join this facilitated interactive session to talk more about the how DataDive is being use address challenges that are important to practice executives. Take advantage of this time with your peers to brainstorm solutions and get a pulse on what other practices are doing to solve some of your most pressing issues.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discuss new strategies to use DataDive to address issues in your practice
• Identify colleagues whom you can contact after the conference to continue problem-solving

Content: Patient Access  
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Adrienne Lloyd, MHA, FACHE,  chief executive officer and founder, Optimize Healthcare; consultant, MGMA; Certified John Maxwell Leadership Coach; DISC Trainer; Lean/Six Sigma Expert 

Now, more than ever, effective patient flow is key to maintaining or increasing volumes, while maintaining safety and optimizing resources.  This session will also explore how to utilize a pull model to help reduce bottlenecks within clinics including use of time observations and spaghetti mapping. These success strategies have been used across multiple practices, of various sizes, to identify and implement necessary process changes, reduce waste, increase standardization of work and outcomes, and smooth clinic flow.  When used together, they can help increase focus on the patient and opportunities for better utilization of resources, and ultimately practice growth.    

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Examine the importance of creating balanced schedules across your practice to reduce bottlenecks
• Outline strategies to reduce patient wait time, while increasing capacity with a pull model
• Analyze Lean and Six Sigma Techniques such as process mapping, spaghetti mapping and time observations to optimize providers’ schedules and flow

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Traditional | Intermediate | Application 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Tim Ruse, MBA, FACHE, CMPE, vice president, client business services, abeo

The healthcare industry faces significant challenges from a shifting payer mix due to the aging of the baby boomer generation. This trend is disrupting the income, culture and staffing models of medical practices. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the shift in payer mix, with unemployment resulting in a higher percentage of Medicare volume in surgeries and other procedures. This session will detail actionable steps for applying business intelligence to help mitigate these trends in payer contracting, operating room efficiency, staffing model evaluation and various strategies to improve the practice's payer mix and ultimately increase revenue. 
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Discover key factors as the payer-mix shifts from commercial payers to Medicare 
• Derive business intelligence about revenue impacts from changes in payer mix 
• Produce steps to mitigate the impact of shifts in payer mix in your medical practice 

Content: Strategic Leadership 
Interactive | Advanced | Synthesis 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Shawntea Moheiser, CMPE, CMOM, owner, ITS Healthcare LLC  

Kem Tolliver, CMPE, CPC, CMOM, president, Medical Revenue Cycle Specialists  

Healthcare organizations have stepped up to the challenges of keeping the public safe and educated while navigating technology, workforce changes, finances and temporary regulations to expand services during the Public Health Emergency (PHE).  So what’s next? How do we ensure the survival of our organizations after the PHE ends? How do we improve our organizations based on what we’ve experienced and learned? During this interactive session, participants will use their current Policies and Procedures, and compliance and disaster plans to create a business continuity plan. This session will equip participants with strategies to address safety, risk mitigation, billing for COVID-19 related services, workflow redesign and technology optimization. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Develop policy and procedure documents to include business continuity strategies
• Devise internal assessment plans that will spark concepts to move from being reactive to innovation
• Revise current operational workflows that align with the current and future landscape of regulations and distribution

Content: Data Learning Lab
Traditional | Basic | Comprehension

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Traditional | Basic | Comprehension

Speaker(s): Jeff Haggard, director, sales - healthcare and strategic accounts, Orbita

Chelsea Biel, BSN, RN, senior director, customer success and clinical informatics, Orbita

Provider organizations, especially those bearing risk on cost/quality of care for patient populations, continue to struggle to bring patients back to appropriate preventative care and timely diagnostics, especially during the COVID pandemic. This is compounded by patients' confusion over in-person care safety, resulting in overwhelming call center volumes and wait times. Intelligent, human-like virtual assistants, including omnichannel proactive campaigns, show significant promise in reducing friction for patients, relieving clogged call center lines, and improving the overall patient experience.

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Describe virtual assistants and their role in healthcare
• Identify techniques to proactively engage patients to return to medical practices after deferring care
• Discuss how virtual assistants can streamline patient throughput

Content area: Patient Access
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Joe Marks, PhD, chief technology officer, Weta Digital

Davin Lundquist, MD, chief medical officer, Augmedix

Medical documentation has long been a significant contributor to cumbersome workflows, excessive administrative burdens, and clinician burnout. While AI has been hailed as a solution for note-taking efficiency, documentation, and electronic health record (EHR) administration, few clinicians would agree reality has measured up to the predictions. In practice, both the EHR and AI have revealed their shortcomings and inefficiencies, particularly in voice recognition, vocabulary, and time savings. In this session, rather than trying to replace humans with AI, learn how AI-enabled platforms can assist staff, providing more accuracy and reliability. 
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Examine how to leverage AI-enabled solutions to ease the burden of clinical documentation and note taking for clinicians
• Compare an AI-alone vs. a hybrid-human/AI approach to medical note taking 
• Examine the cost effectiveness and increased productivity for clinicians using a hybrid human/AI approach

Content: Financial Analysis
Traditional | Basic | Comprehension

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Jose Valero, president and chief executive officer, dashboardMD Analytics

All practices are seeking methods and strategies to improve performance in their organizations.  This session will begin by highlighting the benefits of benchmarking and then dive into the systematic process of measuring performance using KPI metrics, analyzing and responding to results.  The session will conclude with a large practice case study, with a wRVU based compensation plan that experienced significant improvements in several performance metrics due to their benchmarking processes.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Explain how to leverage benchmarking data to set and communicate goals
• Describe how to implement a Performance Improvement Initiative successfully.
• Identify KPI’s to monitor across multiple performance areas, including Scheduling, Productivity, Coding, Billing, Collections, A/R, Denials and Clinical Quality

Content: Financial Analysis  
Traditional | Intermediate | Application

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5
  
Speaker(s): Brian Bogie, director, healthcare vertical, Sage Intacct  

Linda Pinion, principle consultant, Sage Intacct  

Financial executives at healthcare organizations face a make-or-break moment: can they successfully guide their practices out of the pandemic? This challenge is their greatest one yet, and those who are successful will cement their status, not just as the keepers of what has happened, but as crucial drivers of the practice’s future. Join this session to discuss what tools and strategies financial executives are using to help their practices.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Discover KPIs, dashboards and reports to make decisions for the practice   
• Use data to drive practice direction and go-forward strategy 

Content area: Data Learning Lab
Traditional | Basic | Comprehension

ACMPE 0.5 | AAPC 0.5 | ACHE 0.5 | CME 0.5 |  CEU 0.5

Speaker(s): Jeremy Powell, Acclivity Health

Value-based care is becoming an imperative rather than an option for most primary care practices. Clinicians face extreme pressure to improve patient experience and outcomes with a dwindling amount of face-to-face contact.  Practices need to allocate existing resources more efficiently to enhance and maintain the quality of patients’ care and maximize reimbursements and earn bonus payments. 
The right technology can minimize the administrative burden and by prioritizing and managing patients by disease and urgency.  For technology to enhance care and not detract from it, the data needs to give a 360-degree view of a patient’s care. Join this session to learn how having the correct data helps a growing number of practices provide the right care at the right time in the right setting.

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Identify techniques to track cost and utilization risk, medication compliance, mortality risk, and psychosocial issues in a patient population
• Describe how to optimize care management by targeting those patients who will receive the maximum benefit from the care management resources you have
• Discuss tactics to increase revenue across your value-based care contracts

Content: Strategic Leadership
Intermediate | Traditional | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Andrew Hajde, CMPE, assistant director, association content, MGMA

Lauren Jones, senior data strategist, MGMA 

In a recent poll, 82% of healthcare leaders report they have used benchmarking data in the past year to address a business issue.  With the help of benchmarking, leaders can achieve performance improvement and greater success in their practices. They can also become a Better Performer per MGMA criteria by achieving success in four main areas – Operations, Profitability, Productivity and Value. They must fit into the top percentiles nationally in one to all four of the evaluation areas that serve as the levers of best outcomes.  session to gain understanding of benchmarking, the Better Performer criteria and how to apply the data to your practice, and evidence-based success stories of how to become a Better Performer.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Outline areas of opportunity and how to best use the MGMA DataDive Tool and Better Performers Data  
• Compare KPIs and best practices with your peers via a group discussion and Q&A with fellow MGMA members 
• Point out a toolkit of benchmarking resources, checklists, and assessments to take back with you

Content: Strategic Leadership 
Traditional | Intermediate | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Randolph Pirtle, chief executive officer, Blue Ridge Medical Center  

This session provides a simplified conceptual framework for understanding the financial transition from fee-for-service (FFS) to value-based care. The framework can help practice administrators assess the reimbursement give-and-take in the transition from one model to the other. A graphical X-bar analysis demonstrates how organizational margin can be stabilized through the transition. Attendees will learn how to use encounter volume and margin per encounter to understand the complex financial transition better and determine total margin. These three metrics can help you define the financial impact of different rates of change on earnings throughout a transition to value. 

This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Outline a simplified conceptual framework for understanding the financial transition from fee-for-service (FFS) to value-based care  
• Breakdown how Ian Morrison's The Second Curve can be applied to understanding the financial transition to value-based care  
• Analyze volume and margin via the graphical X-bar specifically to your organization  

Content: Revenue Cycle Management
Intermediate | Traditional | Application 

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0 

Speaker(s): Bryan Wood, MBA, administrator, Cockerell & McIntosh Pediatrics  

Common BI tools, such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Power BI, can create robust, multi-dimensional reports that often can replace several canned reports from your practice management system. . This session will explore using SQL to flow data directly into Microsoft Excel or Power BI to build data visuals and pivot tables for data from any perspective (e.g., location, doctor, financial class, payer, etc.). Managers can quickly slice and dice through the data, visualizing KPIs (gross collection ratios, A/R days, lag days, average payment per encounter, etc.) and eliminating the need to manually input data into formula-filled spreadsheets. Attendees will explore some common BI tools and learn from practical examples of pivot tables, reports and other data visuals that display KPIs for any practice.   

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:  

• Discover business intelligence (BI) system concepts and how they work  
• Apply common BI tools (e.g., MS Excel Power Pivot, MS Power BI) that enhance the traditional method of managing and monitoring the revenue cycle  
• Use BI tools for in-depth analysis that help solve business problems  

Content: Revenue Cycle Managment
Traditional |Basic | Comprehension

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Jaci Kipreos, CPC, CPMA, CEMC, COC, CPCI, president and owner, Practice Integrity 

This session will take a deep look at how the changing healthcare environment has impacted billing and documentation for medical practices.  The influx of telehealth and teleconference visits, the new COVID-related rules and the revised 2021 E/M rules have drastically changed billing and documentation workflows.  This session will discuss how those changes have disrupted the documentation and billing processes and how seemingly small changes affect the bottom line.  The session will also discuss the significant changes that may have been overlooked because they were not COVID-related.  Join this session for a check-up to assess your billing and documentation processes' health and for a roadmap to find the best resources to keep them up to date.

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:

• Identify an array of updates related to the business of medicine​
• Describe resources to help stay informed​
• Discuss how each can impact your business

Content: Data Learning Lab

Continuing Education Credit Not Available For This Session

Speaker(s): Lauren Jones, senior data strategist, MGMA
 
An MGMA data expert will provide an overview of MGMA DataDive features and explain how you can best use the data to benchmark your medical practice. Unlock the full power of MGMA DataDive to help improve your operational efficiency and profits. This demonstration will include a live question and answer session to answer attendee questions.
 
This session will provide you with the knowledge to: 

• Describe the features of MGMA DataDive
• Identify important benchmarks for your practice

Content: Strategic Leadership   
Interactive | Intermediate | Analysis  

ACMPE 1.0 | AAPC 1.0 | ACHE 1.0 | CME 1.0 | CPE 1.2 | CEU 1.0

Speaker(s): Ava Cannon, project manager, MGMA

The Medical Practice Excellence: Pathways Conference has just concluded, and now it is on you to turn the knowledge into excellence in your practice. Join this session to learn best practices in implementing improvement initiatives in your organization. The session will start with discussing how best to structure an implementation plan and provide you the tools to get started. This session will also discuss topics vital to implementation success, such as choosing your team, how to best track the project’s progress, and how to avoid common challenges you may face.  Attendees will receive an implementation toolkit and a robust question and answer opportunity with the speaker.  

This session will provide you with the knowledge to:   

• Produce an implementation plan 
• Manage an implementation process 
• Discover common challenges that derail implementation projects