Innovating Intake: 90 Days to Modernized Document Workflows That Deliver Significant ROI
Oceans Healthcare, a multistate provider of behavioral health services based in Plano, TX, is facing unprecedented levels of demand — and the accompanying blizzard of paperwork. Its patient front door is a centralized intake operation that covers 17 of its 34 inpatient hospital locations coupled with standalone intake elsewhere. Over time, system growth has created multiple opportunities for process improvement.
To provide more rapid, effective patient care, the Oceans team wanted to streamline inbound document processing to meet twin goals: respond to patient referrals faster and have more visibility into other types of inbound documents. Specifically, they wanted to capitalize on the ability to reduce bottlenecks that could be achieved by intelligent document processing. Concord Technologies’ Practical AI™ solutions are helping Oceans get the right documents to the right department quickly and confidently.
Oceans relies on the Concord Connect platform to triage all incoming documents at Central Intake. whether received via Concord’s secure documents exchange, direct secure message, email, etc. Documents are classified and quickly routed to the appropriate department and queue for further processing.
When referrals are received, for example, they are routed to the platform’s referral-management solution, Care Intake. Using AI, decision-making criteria is brought forward that allows staff to make an accept/not accept decision immediately. Documents related to other areas, such as outpatient referrals, medical records, utilization reviews, evidence of coverage, insurance verification, billing documents, and other services are routed to the appropriate operational and clinical systems, including into WellSky, Oceans’ EHR system.
In its first four months, the new Concord Connect system resulted in a 5% improvement in referral conversion. The increased patient census as well as enhanced staff productivity were all achieved through a unified system that was able to be heavily customized and will remain nimble and adaptive as the Oceans network continues to expand, explains Kim Guy, Vice President of Clinical Services.
Streamlining a 'spoke and hub' intake system
“Some sites are responsible for their own intake and referral management, while others use our centralized location in Lafayette, La.,” Guy says. “We were managing and classifying more than 8,000 incoming documents alone just for the 17 hospitals served by Central Intake. Thousands of documents were coming in that were not referral-related, but needed to be catalogued, which muddied the waters. We needed a way to sort through everything from utilization management documents to faxes not related to the Central Intake function — and do it on each fax line. We also needed to be able to find documents by date and time, down to the minute.”
Further complicating matters? Clinicians were often doing manual data entry following patient acceptance due to incomplete initial data sets. That’s because Oceans’ different facilities have a varied roster of services for geriatric, adult, and adolescent patients, as well as both inpatient and outpatient services. That resulted in even more paperwork being created around every patient.
Meeting multiple goals with a single, unified solution
Any kind of upgrade needed to offer speed at every stop along the way. That meant faster referral review coupled with streamlined deployment of patient information into departments across all the entire Oceans network. “One appeal of [the Concord Connect platform] was the fax-streaming process,” Guy says. “We could look at referrals as they were coming in, to make faster decisions.”
Another goal was to eliminate a massive spreadsheet that served as a central point for incoming patient data. Multiple locations were feeding into it, providing everything from date and time a faxed document was received to insurance information, disposition decisions, whether data was entered into the WellSky system, and more. It even had a drop-down line for cataloguing -non-referral faxes. “To say the least, it was not the most effective way to triage and process data,” Guy notes.
“We don’t use that anymore; we did a hard stop when we began working with the Concord system,” she says. “People were very excited to let that go, even though they knew there’d be a learning curve with a new system.”
Oceans' new intake, document processing landscape
Now when a faxed document arrives, it’s classified to identify what type of communication it is. If it’s not a referral, but rather an insurance confirmation or outpatient form, for example, it’s routed to the appropriate workflow queue. Meanwhile, referral documents are streamed into the Care Intake referral queues as the pages are received for faster review and disposition.
“Working with Concord will allow us to evolve as we learn what more Concord Connect can do,” Guy says. “We are using the Care Intake referral management tool to process our inpatient referrals and using other Concord Connect document-processing capabilities for our outpatient services at the same time. Already that has helped our teams communicate better.”
Since implementing Concord Connect, Oceans has seen an improved conversion of referrals to admissions. In the last four months of 2024, the provider has achieved 5% improved conversion of referral to admission across the network than before. That is coupled with immense time savings around chasing down and manually classifying and utilizing referral data to improve operations.
“Our nonclinical staff, such as the business-development team, doesn’t have to spend their time searching for data and double-checking various pieces of information in a spreadsheet,” Guy says.
Implementation, training led to quick and successful adoption
Because of the complexity of Ocean’s setup of multiple locations and service lines, there was some staff concern about implementing a new system. Those fears were quickly allayed, Guy says, through ongoing conversations, measurable goals, and thorough planning prior to launch.
“The Concord team was wonderful,” she says. “We were worried about so many facilities, referral sources, and other nuances, but as we worked through building out the system, we were always able to reach and rely on our Concord implementation partners. We have always felt listened to and supported, which has been beneficial to our entire team. We then had both onsite and virtual training, all of which was and continues to be very helpful to us.”
As additional complexities were discovered around workflows and other processes during setup and trial runs, the Oceans and Concord teams continued to partner so the system could evolve. Now, from initial intake to document processing and information delivery, information is flowing smoothly and quickly — and to the right people. So much so, in fact, that more work is being done to further integrate the central intake system setup with the standalone facilities across the Oceans network.
Evolving system, technology will spur further efficiency
Even as all this has been rolled out, work has not slowed down on creating new efficiencies and using rapidly evolving technology to serve patients and achieve Oceans’ operational objectives.
“We are working with Concord on a variety of things that will greatly benefit our entire team, from intake to clinicians, and help enhance their performance,” Guy says. “That includes such new capabilities as having email referrals feed directly into our system. Right now, there is a time lag behind direct-fax referrals in terms of being seen and processed, and we are eager to cut that time lag. We also are looking forward to being able to update any missed information without having to reopen the referral, another element that we’re working on with the Concord team to fit our specific needs. The Concord team has been wonderful to work with; we’ve felt very supported throughout the process and any challenges we’ve had; they’ve worked alongside us to resolve.”
Company
Oceans Healthcare
Industry
Healthcare
Headquarters
Texas
Website
The Problem
Oceans Healthcare operates 34 hospital locations across 9 states. It must receive and triage patient information through a centralized intake site that covers 17 locations as well as standalone operations in the remainder facilities. A slower document-delivery system meant lost referrals, delayed data entry, and other operational challenges.
The Solution
The Concord Connect platform, including referral-management solution Care Intake, means Oceans’ intake team, clinicians, business-development staff, and senior leadership now rapidly have the information they need to be successful at their fingertips.