Click here for a Conference brochure. During the two day session we will cover system updates and new releases, as well as offer breakout sessions for Budgeting, Cost Accounting, Decision Support and Contract Management.  Both client presentations and Kreg Staff presentations are being planned. Click here to register.

If you would like make a presentation for the group please contact your sales representative or Shane Kreter at (203) 762-2268 or shkreter@kreg.com

But Are the Costs Acceptably Accurate?

Kreg set out to address this question.  What we did is take several instances where Kreg had assisted in the development of unit costs for clients using our RVU based approach.  We then compared the per unit results from Kreg’s methodology to the results obtained from a strict application of RCC costs.

The Results of Our Analysis Are Stunning.

There are huge variations between RCC costs and RVU costs everywhere except one small hospital and a stand alone ASC unit.  Six out of 10 charge items have RCC costs that are within a range of 60% (plus/minus 30%) of the RVU based costs.  If your contractuals are plus/minus 30% is that acceptable?  In fact, in the study we found many items were over 1,000% off.  Unfortunately since there is simply no consistent underlying relationship between costs and charges, you can’t reliably use RCCs to determine charge item costs.

 What’s a Healthcare Organization to Do?

As mentioned in a recent HFM article “as hospitals move toward pay-for-performance and other quality-based payments systems, it is essential they have access to accurate, reliable and actionable cost accounting information”.  We know this should be the goal of every healthcare organization in the country, but how you actually achieve it is the problem.  Each organization has different priorities, IT infrastructure, staffing and internal accounting limitations that impact the development of accurate and defensible costs for 100% of the items in their charge masters. 

 Kreg’s “Reality Based Cost Accounting Approach”.

Our clients develop organizational specific RVUs and update their costs quarterly, semi-annually or annually.  We have clients ranging in size from multi-hospital systems to critical access hospitals.  We have clients that feed the cost accounting data into our Decision Support Reporting system to then analyze the profitability of product lines, physicians and contracts and others feeding the costs into their data repositories.  The bottom line is Kreg will help you customize the system and the process based on the realities your organization faces.  We can even outsource the entire process for you.

 You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure.

The reality is you can’t manage what you don’t measure. It is an old management adage that is just as applicable today.  You can’t manage for improvement if you don’t measure to see what’s getting better and what isn’t.  Click here   for a PDF copy of our RCC analysis.

The example below demonstrates the capabilities of Conditional Formatting. In this example, a monthly variance report has Conditional Formatting applied to the Year-to-Date variance percent column. The Conditional Formatting is represented by stoplights where green indicates the variance is within acceptable user criteria, yellow means the variance is close to exceeding the user criteria and red exceeds the user variance criteria and intervention is required.  You define the criteria for the variances within each Report Writer report, and the criteria can be diferent from report to report.

The requirements to use Conditional Formatting and other new features and benefits of this release include: 

• Currently running the Enhanced Report Writer in Version 5.01 of  Kreg’s Budgeting software released in the spring of 2011; and,
• All users must be running Excel 2007 or 2010 to produce or view the formatted reports.

 (Please note Microsoft stopped supporting Excel 2003 in April 2010.) 

  Other new and notable features included in this release are: 

• Improvements to the installation process;
• File Buffering On/Off Tool added to Security;
• Changes to Account Group editing in the Chart of Accounts;
• Group IDs display alphabetically –regardless of case;
• Users can access/run other user’s tasks/jobs;
• Type T in Report Writer – allows text to be placed in a specific cell
• Report writer <cp> can be used in calculation statements in report writer; and,
• New MCA reports across selected centers added to the menu.

 This release is available now and will automatically be sent to all existing version 5.01 clients. Training will be offered via group WebEx sessions.  System documentation will be provided containing additional reference material. WebEx training sessions will be held: 

• September 6, 2012 from 10:00 -11:30 AM
• September 11, 2012 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM

You can sign up by clicking here.

Kreg clients can easily extract more detail than this from EV-CMA, our Contract Management System. The report below can be constructed in the EV-CMA Report Writer. You build custom calculated fields to isolate and compare Cases, Charges, and Expected Payments (Net Revenue) from year to year. Not only does it present variances, it presents the information at the contract/clause level of detail. This way clients can identify variances in specific lines of business.

Click on the report to view the entire image

2010-2011 Net Revenue Trend by Contract Clause

 Kreg can deploy its systems in the following five ways:

• On-Site Client Server Based. The physical server is located at the client site and is part of the client’s network. Multiple users access the Kreg systems on a daily basis over the local network.
• On-Site Client Server on VMWare Server. The Kreg systems are implemented in a VMWare virtual machine located at the client site and is part of the client’s network. Multiple users access the Kreg systems on a daily basis over the local network.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – No server is located at the client site. The client operates the Kreg systems using a web-browser via a secure internet connection. The software resides on a VMWare Services virtual machine located at the Kreg data center in Atlanta, GA. Under this option Kreg provides all software and hardware.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) II. - No server is located at the client site. The client operates the Kreg systems using a web-browser via a secure internet connection to a physical server provided by the client, but housed at the Kreg data center in Atlanta, GA.
• Monthly Report Package – This option is primarily for organizations that do not have the staff to operate the Kreg systems on a daily basis, but need the information to manage their operations. Kreg sets up and imports data on a monthly basis, then provides a customized report set that meets the ongoing needs of the client.  Kreg will also spend up to two hours per month with senior management “drilling through” the data and generating reports for specific projects.

 If you are interested in discussing any of these options, please email us at info@kreg.com.

The report below shows the costs broken down by major category for DRG 470 – Major Joint Replacements.  You can see that although Dr. Jarvis and Dr. Webster have almost the same number of cases for the period, Dr. Jarvis’s patients cost the organization more than twice as much.  You can analyze the cost for each of Dr. Jarvis’ cases to determine if any one case may be causing the variance.  You can also compare charges, costs and utilization by charge item between the two doctors to determine exactly where the variances are occurring. This is the type of report that you can provide to the Medical Director so he/she can deal with Dr. Jarvis directly.

Click here for more information about EV-PLM.

Here are just a few of the new features:

• Totally redesigned Report Control Center that is the users’ home page to organize, view, share, or edit reports.
• Organize reports into any number of major, minor, and sub-categories using a familiar folder interface. For example, you can create major folders on topics like Clinical, Key Indicators, Payer Performance, Profitability, Trending Analysis, etc.
• New user interface based on ASP.NET 3.5. This creates better performance, especially for reports with many rows. Also you can maximize the report to fit your entire screen.
• Faster data imports, and faster calculations due to 64-bit calculations.

Brian Farber, Vice President of Development says “We shipped our first EV-PLM 2012 server to Phoenix Baptist Hospital in August, and are currently using EV-PLM 2012 with our SaaS offering. Clients are going to love this new system. 64-bit processing is the future of computing, and you can’t purchase a new Windows Server or SQL Server that isn’t 64-bit. These new features that clients have requested require the power and capabilities only available in 64-bit processing. Older 32-bit systems just aren’t up to these demands.”

In order to determine the fees associated with this new release for existing clients Kreg will perform an analysis of your existing hardware and systems software. EV-PLM 2012 is a terrific reason to upgrade your aging hardware and systems software.

Kreg will offer free webinars on EV-PLM on September 12^th and 26^th. Click here to register for a webinar, or contact your Kreg representative for more information.

Microsoft recently issued Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) as a critical update for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.  This browser is not available for Windows XP (or older desktop operating systems) or Windows 2003 server (or older server operating systems).

Kreg has identified several issues when using either Kreg EV-CMA or Kreg EV-PLM using Internet Explorer 9.  Kreg’s software development team is currently working on fixing these issues.  When the Kreg software has been updated, you will receive another email notifying you that IE9 is supported with Kreg products.

Kreg recommends that IE9 should not be installed on user’s workstations or servers until the software has been updated.

Please contact Henry Lowendick at 404-261-5734 x211 directly if you have any issues or concerns.

Since the two systems are being functionally merged to promote system interoperability, we have decided to merge the support staffs. Our support will be stronger as a result of doing this because we will have more people trained in both systems, not just one system.

As part of this reorganization Kreg is proud to announce that Preston Coates has been promoted to Director of Decision Support and will be responsible for this combined support staff. Preston holds a Bachelor of General Studies degree from the University of Connecticut. Preston has worked for Kreg for the past twelve years primarily in the EV-PLM area, so he is now taking on the additional responsibility of managing the EV-CMA staff. Over the next few months Preston will be getting acquainted with the EV-CMA clients and will help you assess how your organization is using EV-CMA, and how it can achieve an even bigger return on your investment.