Spotlight: ENT and Allergy Associates

ENT and Allergy Associates

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

Impact:

Implementing EchoOneApp allowed ENT and Allergy Associates (ENTA) to:

  • Realize payroll savings, reduce staff frustration, and improve accuracy
  • Eliminate the work of 2.5 full-time employees (FTEs), allowing staff to be deployed far more effectively, and saved $135,000 annually.
  • Strengthen employee confidence and reduce their work tedium with the non-reliance on paper-based record keeping.
  • Improve patient and employee experience when they could provide real-time insurance coverage information for internal and patient use.

The Challenge:

Our credentialing department had really grown in terms of the number of the positions they were serving. ENTA leadership realized the organization had outgrown its ability to do everything manually. Credentialing and re-credentialing had become a very onerous process. Management was aware of the EchoOneApp product and had looked at options to automate primary source credentialing and verification. EchoOneApp met ENTA’s needs for nondelegated credentialing and a non-primary source verification product. In terms of size and economies of scale, we knew we needed to have a more automated solution, says Drew Franklin, ENTA’s Director of Business and Revenue Strategies. 

Furthermore, a traditional paper-based method of provider credentialing and enrollment creates administrative overhead that is labor- and cost-intensive. According to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), a group practice of 10 physicians spends on average $7,618 per physician for filing and processing physician credentialing applications. For a practice the size of ENTA, the projected cost of a manual credentialing process can be in the millions.

Solution:

ENTA implemented EchoOneApp to move their credentialing processes from a time-intensive paper-based process to an automated online operation. This solution cut the paperwork of credentialing for ENTA by 70 percent, allowing staff to spend more time supporting operations directly tied to patient care.

We take pride in our ability to remain at the cutting edge of practice management solutions like this, where technology serves to reduce costs and optimize staffing, said Wayne Eisman MD, president of ENTA.

Offering a web interface and credentialing software are two tangible examples of where our investment in infrastructure and commitment to streamline the healthcare delivery model in both supply chain management and medical services will truly pay off.

Reducing human error is another great benefit. This software virtually eliminates the chance for errors and illegibility, says Deanna White, ENTA Manager of Credentialing.

Results:

ENTA staff in the credentialing department had no problems with Echo implementation or staff adoption. It was pretty seamless, says White. taff morale and employee satisfaction also improved with the implementation of EchoOneApp.

As a result of implementing EchoOneApp, ENTA was also able to develop a proprietary, real-time interface that integrates participating insurances with the company website. This gives ENTA an automated insurance database for the revenue cycle management team and a list of insurances by provider for patients.

Automating onboarding and credentialing compliance with the EchoOneApp solution allowed ENT and Allergy Associates (ENTA) to operate more efficiently with significant payroll savings and reduced frustration for staff, as well as providing increased accuracy. Almost immediately upon implementation, tasks that normally would require six FTEs to accomplish using a manual spreadsheet could be handled by just 3.5 positions. Those savings of 2.5 positions and 5,000 annualized hours translated into a salary and benefits savings of more than $135,000 per year. EchoOneApp gave staff confidence that the job was being done correctly and reduced the tedious nature of the manual approach that EchoOneApp replaced. ENTA also significantly improved the working and customer experience, not to mention visibility into financial operations for the organization, when they gained the ability to provide real-time insurance coverage information for internal and patient use.