Five Ways to Spend Less Staff Time Administering Time Studies
We recently hosted three experts who have administered time studies at leading hospitals for the first national education session focused solely on time studies called Reimaging Time Studies to Improve Financial Results presented by HFMA. One topic came up repeatedly: just how time-consuming, stressful, and inefficient time studies can be.
This esteemed group shared ways to streamline the process to make it take only a fraction of the time while also providing new insights into your operations. Importantly, the following five methods will not compromise your process or results in any way.
1. Eliminate Every Manual Process
From Casey Rowe, Director of Operations, Barnes-Jewish Hospital:
Since [the time studies] had to be printed out for our reimbursement team, I would line the entire wall of a building with the different months and I would start stacking them. Then my reimbursement team required them to be in alphabetical order, and there were 300 people. So then I would sort them. I would be here all weekend, and this would happen once a month.
TIP: Use a system that automatically collects and aggregates the data so as to avoid time-consuming tasks that absorb countless hours of time.
2. Prepare the Annual Cost Report in Less Time with Data Aggregation
From Crystal Brown, Senior Finance Manager, University of Michigan Health:
Purpose-built automated software…has been a game-changer. Our Cost Report was due last week and the spreadsheet that used to take me a week to put together was literally two or three hours. That alone is worth the price of admission, so it's been a big benefit.
From Robert Howey, Senior Director, Toyon Associates:
One of the things that I see is that we talk about a lot of manual processes and a lot of manual input…are some calculation errors. These surveys do affect a lot of things within the Medicare Cost Report. I've seen it where it could be significant dollars. It could be $100, 000 or $200, 000 – and maybe even more than that – just for one year.
TIP: Increase financial impacts and make the Cost Report and make it faster to prepare when all reports are aggregated into a single database that requires no manual data entry.
3. Assist Practitioners Reporting Time with Ample Support Staff
From Casey Rowe:
What we've been able to do with an automated system is add more direct support for the actual Reporters via the Supporter level… that can help administer this, and check the time studies for compliance, accuracy, and being on time. That takes the [hundreds of] time studies that I need every month and limits my responsibility to make sure that my direct reports have done it.
From Crystal Brown:
For our physician side, we've used their administrative assistants because we realize that they're the closest ones to them and can get them to send them their reminders to do the time tracking. That's been a big help to us instead of trying to track down the physicians themselves.
TIP: Build a support system that can help oversee the process, preferably those that are already situated so reduce friction from the time study process.
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4. Outsource ‘Nagging’ to Automated Reminders
From Crystal Brown:
There are automated reminders. The data is better as the staff just enter it right into the system. The data is automatically calculated for us. I mean it's night and day compared to a manual process because before our participation was probably 50 percent and then I would have to harass them via manual email, keep track of who did it, and who didn't do it.
TIP: Professional staff need reminders, so use an automated system that gets a higher response rate while not taxing your staff to persistently follow up.
5. Educate Your Staff on the Importance of Time Studies
From Casey Rowe:
I do an education session for folks before they start doing [time studies] so that they know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what it means. But the automated systems allow us to build it in a way that if they forget what they’re entering [that] it tells me that's what I need to be tracking right now. It's very clear to folks to have real-time feedback within the system.
TIP: Training people as to why time studies are necessary will help motivate them since it has a direct impact on their hospital’s financial performance and ease their coworkers’ workload.
The insights provided here are only a fraction of what was presented during the Reimagining Time Studies webinar in September 2023. You can also download the 41-page transcript by clicking the following link: Webinar Transcript: Reimagining Time Studies to Improve Financial Performance (PDF).
