What is Panel Management?
Panel management in healthcare, an important component of population health management, is a proactive approach to healthcare delivery that focuses on managing the health of a defined patient population. In this context, a "panel" refers to the group of patients associated with a specific healthcare provider or care team.
Panel management is usually guided by coordinators that act as the bridge between healthcare providers, patients, and the technology tools used for efficient care delivery. Their role involves a combination of data analysis, patient engagement and care coordination.
Key Aspects of Panel Management
Proactive Care
Unlike traditional healthcare models that often react to patients seeking care, panel management emphasizes proactive and preventive care. The goal is to anticipate and address health needs before they become acute, reducing the likelihood of emergency interventions.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Panel management relies heavily on health data and analytics to identify health trends, risk factors, and care gaps within the patient population. This data-driven approach helps make informed decisions about resource allocation and care priorities.
Risk Stratification
Patients within a panel are often stratified based on their health risks and needs. This allows healthcare providers to allocate resources more efficiently, concentrating efforts on patients who may need more intensive care or preventive measures.
Care Coordination
Effective panel management involves coordinating care across various healthcare settings and specialties. Care teams collaborate to ensure that patients receive comprehensive and seamless care, reducing fragmentation in the healthcare journey.
Technology-Driven Panel Management
Population Health Data Platform
Healthcare organizations often use population health management tools and technologies to facilitate panel management. These tools help in tracking and managing health data, identifying care gaps, and tracking payer contract performance.
Panel Management Workflow Automation
The use of patient engagement technology to automate repetitive tasks and improve the patient experience. Automating tasks such as chart reviews, outreach, and appointment scheduling can free up time for the staff to focus on more important work, and it can also provide a better experience for your patients.
What Value Can Panel Management Provide?
Visit Growth
Panel management supports visit growth by prioritizing appointments based on clinical significance, patient needs, and payor contract incentives. By identifying high-value appointments such as follow-ups, preventive care visits, and screenings, healthcare organizations ensure that their limited provider capacity is optimally utilized. This leads to increased patient access to essential healthcare services, improved patient satisfaction, and efficient use of provider time.
Downstream Retention
Downstream retention refers to the ability to keep patients within the healthcare network for specialized services and procedures. Panel management ensures that patients are guided to preferred specialists and facilities within the network. This has multiple benefits, including retaining high-revenue services within the organization, improving care coordination among providers, and reducing patient churn.
Clinical Quality Performance
Panel management enhances clinical quality performance by proactively addressing preventive care and chronic disease management. By identifying care gaps and stratifying patients based on risk, healthcare organizations can implement targeted interventions. This leads to improved adherence to clinical guidelines, increased rates of preventive screenings, and better management of chronic conditions.
Shared Savings
In value-based care models, shared savings are achieved when healthcare organizations effectively manage the health of their patient population and reduce unnecessary healthcare costs. Panel management contributes to shared savings by minimizing emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and other avoidable healthcare expenses.
Best Practices for Panel Management
Gaps in Care Closure
Leverage data analytics to identify and stratify patients based on care gaps. Regularly update and assess this data to ensure accuracy. Reach out to patients to schedule patients with care gaps for recommended care services. Provide services and support to make it easier and more convenient for patients to receive preventive care.
Gaps in Coding Closure
Conduct regular audits of coding practices to identify and rectify gaps. Ensure coding accuracy and compliance with healthcare coding standards. Provide ongoing education and training to the staff to stay updated on coding guidelines and best practices. Have coding professionals review charts to identify code recapture opportunities and conduct outreach to patients with coding opportunities to schedule a healthcare appointment.
Transitional Care Management
Develop standardized protocols for transitional care management to ensure a smooth transition from acute care settings to community care. Implement timely follow-up procedures to address post-discharge needs, medication reconciliation, and coordination with other care providers.
Chronic Disease Care Management
Stratify patients based on their risk for chronic diseases to tailor care management interventions. Provide high-touch care management services to help patients manage chronic diseases and address social determinants of health.
Pre-Visit Planning
Use patient data to anticipate and plan for upcoming visits. Identify preventive care needs and address care gaps during pre-visit planning. Optimize scheduling processes to ensure that patients receive the necessary screenings, vaccinations, or preventive services during their visits.
Remote Patient Monitoring
Integrate remote patient monitoring technologies to collect real-time data on patients' vital signs and health indicators. Implement alert systems to notify care teams of any concerning changes in patients' health status, enabling timely intervention.
Annual Wellness Visits
Promote the importance of annual wellness visits to patients through educational materials, reminders, and personalized communication. Develop annual wellness visit workflows that leverages top of license care within the team; consider having nurses lead much of the visit.
Hear It Directly From Our Clients
“The efficiency, innovation, and attention to detail in their approach have been game changers for primary care practices, allowing staff previously dedicated to outreach to focus on other aspects of care, and their modalities have improved efficiencies and effectively and conveniently engaged and scheduled patients.”
Director of Performance & Quality at Highland Healthcare Associates IPA.
“HealthHelper is filling a real gap for us and taking a tremendous amount of work off our plate.
Their combination of technology and services helps us improve contract performance, optimize provider schedules, and improve clinical quality. Our patients, providers, and staff all love it!”
Network Medical Director & PCP at Family Practice Group.
“HealthHelper's innovative panel management platform and coordination service enable our medical practices to focus more on patient care. Their approach streamlines patient panel management, data analysis, and scheduling, boosting our operational efficiency and enhancing our capacity to deliver outstanding and unique patient services. The fact that they actually schedule patients for healthcare services really sets them apart.”
Chief Operating Officer at Rhode Island Primary Care Physicians Corporation.
How HealthHelper Supports Panel Management
HealthHelper revolutionizes panel management by providing healthcare organizations with innovative tools and data-driven insights. Our platform empowers care teams to efficiently manage patient panels, ensuring that each patient receives the right care at the right time. Through advanced analytics, automated reminders, and seamless care coordination, HealthHelper helps identify and close care gaps, optimize scheduling, and improve patient outcomes.
