Overview

Many of the tables in the explore page have tens of thousands of entries. If you have access to multiple states, the number of entries can reach into the hundreds of thousands. Filters allow you to hide some of the extra data so you can focus on the "nuggets of gold" you will find in the metrics.

 Some filters are dependent on previous settings. Examples: The Assigned Users filters will only work if the providers in the table have been assigned to a user in your company. Classification will only contain entries if you have providers assigned to you, and you have added priority levels to each assigned provider.

 Like an airplane cockpit, sometimes the number of buttons and sliders and options available  in the filters section can be a bit overwhelming. In the case of filters, the best way to learn how they work is to open them up, select a filter, see what happens, add another filter, then check the results. Unlike an airplane, clicking all the buttons can't lead to a disaster. If you get in trouble, you can always click on  and start again. Click around, experiment, see what happens - you can't break anything.

Using Filters

You will want to use the filters to help you find competitors in a specific area, identify physicians with a larger referral potential, or pinpoint facilities that match specific performance parameters. 

Strategy

Like Alice finding her way in Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, you are more likely to find the data you want if you have a clear destination in mind before you start walking through the data.

There are some questions that might help:

• Where? - What is my Market? What is the region I want to include? Where is my agency? Into what area do we need to grow? 
• What/Who? - What types of providers am I seeking? In Facilities, this might be Hospitals or SNFs. For Physicians, what specialties do I want to consider? Sometimes this will be a specific hospital, network, or physician group.
• Patient Demographic - What type of patients are you looking for? All Medicare patients is broad, choosing home health patients narrows the field, Last Claimed patients is very specific. How many patients? A physician who has 15,000 Medicare patients probably didn't interact with many.

Put what you want in a simple sentence:

I want to see the top ten physicians in Montgomery county, Pa who are Internal Medicine docs with 200-300 home health patients who have home health utilization less than 30%.

From this statement, we can identify which filters we will use, and how to set them:

• Set the Location filter to Montgomery (county), PA
• Choose Physicians with the specialty, Internal Medicine
• Set two range filters:
  • Physician hospice patients to 200-300 patients
  • Hospice Utilization to physicians below 30%

Now, if you sort the table by the column Hospice Utilization (click the header twice) to show the physicians with the lowest home health utilization, you can browse the list, set the top ten as favorites or export the entire list of physicians.

 If, at any time in your filter selection, the table is emptied of all entries, your combination of filters is too limiting. You will need to expand the possibilities. Keep in mind that it is possible that no providers fit your parameters. In that case, you will need to re-think what you are looking for.

Excluding and Including

How do you know what will be in the table as you add filters? Think of using filters as what you want to include, or exclude.

Within a single filter

Imagine that we are looking for physicians in a specific market. We click on the Location filter, click on MN in the State column, and then we start adding counties:

When we click on Becker, the table shows 100 physicians. When we click on Big Stone, we include the physicians from that county, and the table now has 115. If we continue and add Anoka, Our table will include 831 physicians.

In other words, when using a single filter, as we add more items, we will include more entries in the table.

Adding another Filter

Next, we add an additional filter, specialty, and choose one item, Internal Medicine.

The number of physicians in the table is now 92. When we add the specialty filter, we are excluding all physicians from the table who do not meet the specialty we have chosen.

If we add more specialties, we would be including more entries to the table.

 After we set filters, the buttons change colors to indicate that the filter is "active." Also, the count of items selected in each filter is shown on the tab. Our two counties are indicated on the Location filter and our one specialty is indicated on the Specialty filter.

 Be Careful! - When we first select an entry in a filter column, that entry will be moved to the top. In the image below, notice that MN has been checked, but the counties listed in the County column are from Alaska. AK is currently "selected" even though we clicked on the checkbox for MN. In order to bring up Minnesota counties, you will need to click on the MN, or in that row, in order to give that item focus. Then the County column will update to include counties from MN.

 

If you click on an Alaska county, e.g. Aleutians East, the table will then include physicians from that county and put a check in the checkbox for AK.

Saving a filter

After you have set up a set of filters the way you want, you can save those filter settings for later use.

Click on Save As.

This will open a dialog box that has one field. 

 Choose a name that will help identify the filter. Later, when you have 50 filters, you will thank yourself for making it easy to find and choose the one you want.

Once you have saved the filter, you will be able to apply the filter to the current table at any time by clicking on the field Select Saved Filters and choosing the filter of your choice (see image below).

 If you currently have a custom filter set in use, the field will contain the name of that filter instead of Select Saved Filter. You can still click that field and select a different saved filter set.  Please make sure you save your current set before you open a new one.

Filter tools

Once you have saved a filter set, you have some new options.

• Delete - Clicking this button will delete the filter set shown in the field. In this example, MN-Two Counties.
• Save as - If you click this button, you will be able to save the filter under a new name. This is useful if you have made changes to the opened filter set and you want to have both filter sets saved.
• Save - If you have made changes to the opened filter set, you can use this button to save those settings to the opened filter set.

•  - clicking this button will open a dialog box that reveals the settings for the opened filter set.

•  - clicking this button will reset the current filters to match the settings of the opened filter set. You can think of this as undoing your changes since you opened a filter set. If you haven't made any changes to the filters since you opened the filter set, clicking this button will do nothing.
•  - Clicking this button will allow you to share the filter. See next section below.

Sharing a Filter

When you click on the button, a dialog box will open with three options.

Private

Private means that the filter set is not shared to anyone else. You can use this to make a shared filter set no longer shared. Private is the default setting for a new filter set.

My Organization

If you choose My Organization, the opened filter set will be shared with all users in your company.

Custom List

 If you choose Custom List, you will be able to select specific colleagues to receive the shared filter set.

 You will need to add a name for the shared filter set in the List Name field. You will not be able to save (share) the filter set until you provide a List Name.

 You might want to use the same name you used when you first saved the filter set. That way, when you confer with your colleagues, you will be able to match the filter sets. If you are creating filter sets and sharing the filter set for them to use, a different name might be the best choice.

Save the shared set when you are done selecting recipients of your filter set.

 When you first save a filter set, you will not be able to share it for techy reasons. The  button will not be visible. You have two options:

1. Refresh your page (Shift-F5) and open the filter you just saved.
2. Clear your filters and open the filter you just saved.

Complete List

On the Explore page, the filters that are available are different depending on the Solution (HOS, HHA, or SNF) and the Provider type selected.

The top table includes a list of all available filters, where you will find each filter, basic usage instructions and an image of the filter for reference.

The second contains images the filters available for each solution and provider type.

 Two filters require further explanation and are found at the bottom of the article; Location and Range.

Filter Name	Usage Description	Sample
Affiliation Physicians only	Action: Search for and select a facility or facilities. Result: The table will populate with physicians whose NPI is identified on a facility claim, or if the physician submits a claim for services performed in the hospital
Assigned Users All providers	Action: Search for and select a user or multiple users from your company. Result: The table will be limited to providers who have been assigned to users in your company. The column, Assigned User will show the names of the users in your company.  If you sort the Assigned User column - the assigned users are sorted to the top with a single click.
Claim Type Facilities only	Action: Select a claim type: For example, Inpatient, Outpatient, Skilled Nursing. Result: The table will be limited to facilities that have submitted those claim types.  Remember that some facilities submit more than one claim type.
Classification	Notes: If you have identified a provider as a target,  and if you have assigned that target a priority level (Classification), you will be able to sort the table by that assigned level using this filter. Action: Select a priority level; none, low, medium, high. Result: The table will be limited to providers with the priority level assigned.
Facility Type Facilities only	Notes: These facility types come from the primary taxonomy under which each provider is registered in the NPPES NPI Registry. Action: Search for and select one or more facility types. Result: The table will be limited to only facility types that you have chosen
Hospice MS for Hospice only	Action: Search for and select one or more hospices Result: The table will populate with providers that treated patients admitted to the hospice(s) selected in the filter. For the hospices table, this filter will limit the table to the same hospice(s).   Choosing multiple agencies with this filter is useful if your company has a number of hospices with separate NPIs and you want to create a complete list of sources.
Location All tables	Action: Select a Location - State(s), County(s), City(ies), ZIP code(s) Result: The table will contain providers whose address is found in your chosen location.	See below - click here.
Medical Billing (Billing NPI) Physicians only	Action: Select a single Physician billing group. Result: The table will include all members of the selected group.  Selecting a billing NPI will populate the column, % of Total Claims (Billing NPI)
Range Filters	Action: Set one or  a combination of range filters available. Result: The entries included in the table will be limited to those providers that meet the multiple numeric ranges you set.  This is a powerful tool for limiting the table to very precise patient populations.	See below - click here.
Risk Category	Action: Select one or more of the Risk Categories available. Result: Providers included in the table will be limited to the selected level of risk.  For more information on Risk Scores and Risk Categories, click here.
Skilled Nursing	Action: Search for and select one or more Skilled Nursing Facilities Result: The table will populate with providers that treated patients admitted to the SNF(s) selected in the filter. For the Skilled Nursing table, this filter will limit the table to the same SNF(s).   Choosing multiple agencies with this filter is useful if your company has a number of SNFs with separate NPIs and you want to create a complete list of sources.
Specialty Physicians only	Action: Select one or more physician specialties. Result: The table will only include physicians who have registered under the chosen specialties in the NPPES NPI registry.
Star Rating	Action: Select one or more Star Rating values. Result: The table will include providers whose CMS Star Rating matches the values you select.
Target Type	Note: Providers are identified as one of the different categories included in this filter when you make a provider a target. Action: Select one or more of the Target types. Result: The table will be limited to targets that have been identified as the target type selected.
Clear Filters	Clicking this button removes all settings from all filters.

 

 As a useful references, the following table shows what filters are available for each explore page in all three Marketscapes. Click on the images to expand them.

Solution/Provider	Physicians	Facilities (HHA and HOS)/Hospitals & Agencies (SNF)	HHA, HOS, or SNF
Home Health
Hospice
Skilled Nursing

 

Location Filters

Trella Health Addresses

Before we jump into using the location filter, it is helpful to understand where Trella Health gets provider addresses. This will help you to understand how the Location filter works.

Trella Health downloads location content from the NPPES NPI Registry Database. From this database we pull addresses, cities, states, and ZIP codes which we match to the NPIs from Medicare claims. We then use another database to match each ZIP code to a county.

 For the location filter, you can search by State, County, City, or ZIP code. Depending on the size of the market you want to include in the table, any one of these could work

What's with all the odd entries?

Because we use the NPPES NPI registry, any errors in a provider's information can cause some odd results. In the image below, we searched in the location filter for Philadelphia. Notice that the city of Philadelphia shows up in Allegheny county. The city and county are on opposite sides of the state. But, there is a single physician who is registered with the address "Philadelphia, PA 15213." When we apply the county to the address, based on the ZIP code, it generates this oddity.

 If you discover an error, you can edit the provider's information on the Analyze page.

 

Using the Filter

General

The entries in the Location filter are nested. For example, when you select a state, all counties in that state show up in the County column to the right.

From the GIF below you can see that clicking on PA populates the county column with PA counties, then selecting Beaver in the county column populates the city, and so on.

  The filters are not active until you click on a check box.

In the image below, we have clicked on the checkbox next to Clinton. Now the table will include only providers from the town of Clinton, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Notice that PA and Beaver are also checked, and CLINTON has been added to your Selected Locations at the top left.

Searching 

The alternative to clicking through the columns is to search by state, county, city, or ZIP code. We want to find the same town, Clinton, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

 Search Results will appear in the following formats:

• State
• State / County
• State / County / City, etc. Since we are searching for a city, we will find our result in this format

In the GIF image below, We open the Location filter and type Clinton into the search field.

 Observations:

• The first entries you see are "IA / Clinton" and "IL / Clinton" - these represent Clinton county in those two states. When we scroll down, you can see that many states have a Clinton County
• We find our desired result as "PA / Beaver / Clinton"

Range Filters

Each range filter is connected to a column in the table with the same name. The numbers at the left and right ends of each filter represent the lowest count and the highest count compiled from all providers in the table.

 These filters are not dependent on other filters. If you limit the table using another filter, these ranges will represent the complete, unfiltered ranges for the included metrics.

 Although the image below is taken from Marketscape for Home Health, the principles and usage information below will be similar in Marketscape for Hospice and Marketscape for SNF.

Usage

There are a few simple guidelines for use:

• In general, this should be the last filter you set up.
• The circles on the end of each filter are a handle that you can click and drag.
• Click on the circles and drag the filter to the left or right.
• To fine tune your selection, use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to raise or lower the selected circle.
• Your selected number for each end of the filter will appear at each end of the filter, not above the circle.

 These filters are exclusive of each other, that is, the results in the table will be the cross section of all range filters set. It is easy to move these sliders and eliminate results in the table.