Laboratories of all sizes—private, reference, and hospitals—balance two main objectives: high quality testing and results, and achieving business goals and objectives. A laboratory’s main function is to provide accurate test results in a timely manner that will help drive better patient outcomes. However, it is also a business, and as such, it is faced with the typical challenges of doing this while maintaining or improving return on investment (ROI), efficiency, growth, profitability, customer retention, and acquisition, especially with reimbursement rates being cut dramatically.
The majority of labs now conduct outreach programs in order to thrive as businesses. Many are acting as reference labs to other labs and medical facilities, and outreach is a core connection for these relationships to be executed successfully.
The two sides to the outreach perspective
I. Outreach as a program or business process
Simply put, the best outreach programs leverage technology that will be able to provide efficiency and speed and be able to bring in more revenue. In order to increase revenues and profitability, labs are required to take in tests from remote sources to increase quantity of overall testing. Most labs cannot survive on in-house testing alone. Many focus on geographic or specialty testing. This requires relationship building and maintenance, sales, and customer service on the part of the lab.
One increasingly beneficial factor for deployment of outreach programs is that geographies are not limited by longitude and latitude. With outreach applications being web-based and truly web-deployed, full access for secure, robust test ordering, tracking and result reporting are truly anytime/anywhere.
The most significant challenge a lab faces is making sure its technology is able to fully integrate the multiple and disparate EMRs in use by its clients. As a lab’s client base grows, the ability to leverage existing EMR/EHR systems in use at provider locations immediately and without disruption of daily operations will give it a competitive advantage with regard to acquiring and maintaining customers, as well as achieving Meaningful Use objectives.
II. Outreach to improve ROI, customer satisfaction, and scale
Vendors with a true understanding of the objectives of a laboratory outreach program have developed outreach solutions that provide the ability to order a full range of clinical, pathology, and molecular tests. With the click of a mouse, 24 hours a day/seven days a week, orders can be routed directly to the appropriate testing location, and the reports can be sent back, customized and in the manner they prefer.
Features that a lab needs to consider when choosing the right outreach vendor include the following:
- Order entry that is able to provide patient and sample demographic information as well as a menu of lab tests and supplies that are specific to each physician or site
- Truly web-based access for the lab’s clients, including mobile and handheld access
- Email notifications when results are completed and available
- Performing location-based requisition rules as well as automatic label printing and bar-coded requisition form generation
- Full support for courier functionality
- The ability to display case documents and the patient’s entire history with the result report for a full perspective on the patient
- Medicare compliance checking and automatic ABN form generation
- Support for standing orders and client-specific testing menu display
- Test compendium/catalog for specimen handling and test information.
Three other factors are important for outreach-minded labs to take into consideration: ease of viewing reports, a secure web-based interface, and customer service.
Result report viewing
When reports become available, they should be immediately available through secure online access and within the client EMR system. Clients should be able to search for specific patient reports or view a list and status of all available reports based on several criteria, such as date range and completion or test status. Report distribution should be defined by clients based upon their preference for delivery mechanism (for example, fax, email, printing to their office) as well as how often or when they would like to receive them. Adding value to the client increases customer service and satisfaction while decreasing the demand on the lab’s staff for servicing the client. Allowing the physician the ability to view a patient’s full history as well as select specific test results and display them graphically over time will enhance the diagnostic value of the results.
Web-based interface
Outreach programs connect your lab with your customers. The most successful outreach programs allow customers to place test orders with the laboratory and retrieve the results through a secure web-based interface. Web-based outreach programs offer benefits such as 24/7 access and support mobile and hand-held devices, automatic test routing, order status tracking, faster report turnaround time, higher quality reports, and a decrease in time for reimbursements. A secure outreach program can help a laboratory streamline efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction. Web-based order entry and results allow physicians the flexibility to self-service. Labs that offer these services will have a competitive edge over those that do not. Labs that offer their clients the ability to brand and customize labels, requisitions, and reports will be even more competitive.
Standout customer service
The ability to offer customized reports to your physician customers increases customer satisfaction and repeat business. Laboratory reports that include images, customer branding, charts, and graphs are essential to differentiating what you can offer to your clients. The final report should include a complete picture of a patient’s condition, including patient demographics, history, clinical, anatomic pathology, and molecular results in a single, combined report format. The information should be available in the order specified by the physician. For example, some physicians like to see historical or demographic data first; some prefer results and images first.
Labs that are in front of their competition have an outreach solution that supports the new, unique reporting requirements of molecular diagnostic testing.
Report delivery methods should also be customizable by physician or physician group. They should be delivered at the time the physician wants to receive them—when completed, three times a day, at 8 a.m. and noon, etc. The ability to deliver the report in the manner the physician wants to receive it is crucial as well. Some physicians want to be able to view or download them online at any time. Some want them integrated directly into their EMR, and others want them to print directly to a printer in their office. Many labs still use faxing to deliver a large volume of reports to physician offices; however the ability to provide high-quality reports or support images will make faxing obsolete, as will the proliferation of technology such as web services.
Choosing an outreach vendor
Some of the things a lab needs to consider when choosing the right outreach vendor and putting its outreach plan together include the following:
- The vendor’s ability and experience integrating with EMR/EHR applications
- The potential for better, faster customer service and reduction of workload on the lab’s staff by enabling self-service for clients—e.g., direct physician cloud-based access to place orders, track progress, view, and receive final result reports
- Whether the vendor can provide customizable ask-at orders, client-branded requisition forms, and final reports, which enhance the client’s business and reduce manual workload as well as potential error.
- Whether outreach can be bi-directional, working automatically with your LIS through order delivery, status checking, and accurate partial, complete, and supplemental test result reports being delivered in a timely manner and based upon physician preference.
A successful outreach program is both scalable and affordable. The ability to add new clients quickly, over the web, and with a portal that is clean, user-friendly, and appealing to the physician will reduce the adoption time and get your clients placing orders faster!
