For home infusion providers looking to further immerse themselves into the world of infusion, networking opportunities like the National Home Infusion Association (NHIA) Annual Conference are a great place to start. Prochant infusion expert Jon Love recently attended the 2022 NHIA conference and spoke about his experience, as well as the infusion industry as a whole.
When you attend conferences like NHIA, you can speak with people who have 20-40 years of experience in the infusion industry. Jon Love has talked to “people who had home infusion pharmacies that had nine patients and then grew them to have 4,000 patients.”
To understand the industry, you must communicate with dedicated people and learn what they’ve done to out-perform.
“Find really smart people, buy them a beer, and just let them speak. They’ll tell you things that you just can't find in any webinar or book,” Jon said. In a way, the point of conferences has less to do with educational sessions and everything to do with the people you meet.
When asked what some of the big topics NHIA attendees discussed, Jon first gave us a summary of home infusion’s past.
“There used to be five home infusion systems, so you had this really competitive landscape. There was HomeCare 360, CPR+, Fast-Track, and so on. WellSky strategically bought all of them, so then it took everything down to just a single, red ocean that everybody played in. Now as home infusion is expanding, you have ResMed, Brightree, and a couple others. It's interesting to watch what used to be a really captive audience spread out.”
Now, home infusion providers have more systems to consider, which is great for them but is a burden for software companies, as was discussed at NHIA. It puts a lot of pressure on software companies to try to put their best products on the market. Clients of Prochant have said they went through demos from multiple companies to figure out what system was best for them.
“A lot of the frustration around payers is them not being allowed to care for patients,” Jon said of people he spoke with at NHIA’s conference. For example, payers aren’t able to properly care for patients at certain locations, unable to give them the drugs they need. This causes them to have to drive more, which hampers the amount of care time they’re able to provide patients.
Health systems are starting to move into home infusion a lot more than they were in the past.
“Essentially what they've said is,” Jon explained, “‘Hey, we have these infusion clinics, but we're not doing home infusion. Why are we giving the drug? It's our script. Why are we giving it away to ‘ABC Home Infusion’ so they can make the money on it? We'll just create our own home infusion and keep the link in house.’”
One by one, independent providers are having to fight health systems and prove even harder why they have better service.
It is due to “a lack of expertise, broken processes, bad technology, and a lack of labor on the U.S. side,” Jon said.
Lack of expertise and broken processes
“Every week, I talk to someone who's losing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, because they've come to this belief that they can't collect 95% of their expected revenue. It's a mindset for them.”
When Prochant infusion experts talk about the fact that our client average DSO is 35 and below, providers are astonished, because their DSOs are 66 and 60.
“We talk about the fact that we collect 95% cash in net revenue. Providers can't believe that, because they're getting 80%, meaning 15% of their revenue is being left on the table, which sometimes is hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars.”
Bad technology
To have revenue cycle success, you need to have technology involved. “We can't work in spreadsheets anymore. We have to work in a place where we're tracking both our work and your work, and we know where our errors are and we can fix our errors quickly,” Jon said.
Lack of labor
When it comes to high turnover or struggling with training, Jon said, “You lose somebody, it's critical. It'll take you 18 months to train someone else, or it'll take you six months to get someone who knows what they're doing, and you're going to have to overpay them, because they know there's very few people out there.”
Prochant’s whole organization is centered around bringing you infusion, pharmacy, and specialty pharmacy people with 20-30 years experience to lead your team. We have End-to-End revenue cycle management solutions, as well as focused solutions for any business.
“We're going to bring a global hybrid workforce of U.S. managers and global teams, so that we can staff appropriately. We're going to base it all on technology that's going to track and keep us all accountable, and give you transparency as you work with us. That's how we solve everything.”
To learn more about Prochant’s solutions for infusion, contact Jon Love at jlove@prochant.com or visit our pharmacy reimbursement solutions page here.
Prochant is the leading reimbursement firm with a dedicated focus on HME and pharmacy. We have a proven track record of helping HME and pharmacy providers meet their financial goals. Our scalable solutions, years of experience, and advanced technology provide best-in-class results to the healthcare community. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, our client base includes national HME and pharmacy providers and health systems.