7 Steps to Evaluate & Communicate Return on Visit (ROV) for Physician Liaisons
Physician liaisons are a critical component of organizational growth strategies. Yet, quantifying and communicating their value to internal stakeholders can be challenging as much of the work they do tends to be less visible to senior leadership. Still, the competition for dollars and resources within a healthcare entity makes it imperative for physician relations programs to accurately quantify and communicate their value, impact, and most importantly, their return on visit.
There are many ways to evaluate a physician liaison’s performance. Managers can tag along and assess how well a physician liaison appears to know their assigned practices and observe their interaction with them. They can also evaluate the number of visits or events a liaison is able to tackle within a specific period. However, the challenge with these approaches is that they may help identify how busy a liaison is in the field, but not their actual effectiveness.
So, what is the best way to determine the return on investment for physician liaison efforts?
The answer often lies with the reason your organization launched its program. For example, some liaisons are actively focused on ramping up a new provider’s practice or service line while others may be focused on retention while their operations team is navigating a challenge or change. Liaisons can also sometimes be engaged in helping gain commitments that will improve quality or reduce costs. By understanding the goals of your physician outreach program, you can better understand what measures to use to assess your impact on key volume, financial, quality, and alignment metrics. Follow these seven steps to effectively calculate and communicate your return on visit (ROV).
1. Summarize Your Goal
In order to evaluate your return on visit, start by setting and understanding the optimal outcomes of your efforts. Goals should be a mix of volume, financial, quality, and alignment. Once you’ve set these key goals, you’ll be better equipped to track and measure success.
Sample Measures of Liaison Impact by Goal Type
Volume
- New patient referrals
- Overall service line trends
- Growth tied to growth tied to specific
- Location, patient market, procedure, or provider
- New provider ramp-up
Financial
- Net revenue/contribution margin
- Costs per case
- Medical shared savings program results
- Budget performance
Alignment
- Recruitment/retention
- Physician satisfaction ACO participation
Quality
- Patient outcomes
- Patient satisfaction
2. Identify & Define Success
Once your personal goals have been set, it’s important to identify how your leadership team will define liaison success. Some of these KPIs may include:
- Volume
- Case Profitability
- Patient Satisfaction
- Key Quality Indicators
- Market Share
- Alignment
- Physician Satisfaction
3. Assess Impact
Next, outline specific measures available to assess impact and the frequency at which these are updated. Start by identifying your initial baseline and establish multiple checkpoints along the way. When analyzing your final result, compare your team’s initial projections and identify if the outcome met or exceed the set goals.
4. Calculate Financial Impact
Define your contribution margin and calculate any volume changes. Don’t forget to also consider any downstream potential. Were there any other related volume increases that may have been tied to the campaign outside of the initial goals? For example, your primary goal may have been to increase the total number of valve procedures performed within your heart hospital, but, as a result of promoting the valve clinic, the imaging and cath lab volumes may also have seen an impact.
5. Examine Expenses
Collect and calculate any expenses that may be tied to the campaign to accurately calculate the ROV. Examples may include:
- Staff time
- Meals
- Collateral
- Events
- PRM/Data
6. Calculate Impact
Once you calculate expenses and financial impact, you can understand your financial impact. These numbers will allow you to understand your gross financial impact and identify your ROV.
7. Build Your Story
Now it’s time to tell your story. Collect examples of the outreach tactics you used to deliver your results, as well as what other measures of success you may have identified. These may include market share, costs or quality.
As you continue to use this process to evaluate and communicate your Return on Visits, make sure to keep notes on what you learn that may shape the next iterations of your campaigns.
Interested in learning more about tracking your activities and calculating ROV? Schedule a quick 15-minute demo with one of our Solutions Specialists to see how Marketware can help you get more done in less time.
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