Net Revenue Trend Analysis

December 1st, 2011

A Kreg client recently attended an HFMA conference and asked a panel of hospital financial people how they tracked changes in net revenue from year to year. Most panelists admitted they see the totals only on the institution wide P&L’s where they see a variance in total net revenue from the previous year.

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 Offers Five Ways to Deploy Solutions

October 26th, 2011

Every healthcare provider has different needs and staffing capabilities that impact how they implement and use their Cost Accounting/Decision Support and Contract Management solutions. Clients rely on these systems to analyze the cost, profitability and resource utilization of Product Lines, DRGs, Physicians, Managed Care Contracts, etc. They also use them for recovering underpayments from managed care payers and negotiating more favorable contract terms and conditions with their payers.

 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.

Using EV-PLM for Physician Comparisons

October 6th, 2011

Kreg clients are using the Patient Level Management System, EV-PLM, to compare length of stay and costs by physician for specific DRGs. 

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.

Kreg Announces EV-PLM 2012, a 64-bit Decision Support System

August 31st, 2011

Kreg Information Systems has announced the release of our new 64-bit Decision Support System, EV-PLM 2012. This is a major release that offers a variety of new features, faster processing, and an improved user interface. EV-PLM 2012 takes advantage of both 64-bit Microsoft Windows Server 2008, and 64-bit SQL Server 2008 R2 to bring the advantages of this new technology to Kreg clients. Kreg will offer free webinars on EV-PLM on September 12 and 26. Click here to register for a webinar.

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.

Problems with Internet Explorer 9

June 30th, 2011

Note that this message only applies to users running Windows Vista, Windows 7 or servers installed with Kreg EV-CMA or EV-PLM running Windows Server 2008.

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.