Overview

The Sales Spotlight and the Sales Spotlight email have two sections of metrics: 

Click on the Metric name to immediately navigate to the details for that metric.

• Top Physician Metrics - These metrics are insights into the physician.
  • Hospice Utilization (Mortalities) - The percent of the selected physician's patients who were admitted to hospice who died.
  • Annual Medicare FFS Patients - The count of Medicare FFS patients for whom this physician submitted a claim.
  • Top Hospice Destinations - The three hospices who admitted the largest number of the selected physician's patients.
  • Hospice ALOS - The Average number of days the selected physician's patients spent in any hospice. Counts include only discharged patients.
• Our Agency Relationship - These metrics are insights into the your chosen hospice.
  • Hospitalization Rate within 30-days of Hospice Discharge - This is the percent of your chosen agency's patients admitted to a hospital during their hospice stay or within 30 days of discharge.
  • All Visits and RN Visits Last 7 and Last 3 days - These four metrics are counts of hospice visits to a patient who is actively dying. We count for All visits (RN, LPN, SW and Aide) and RN visits, each for two periods, the last three days of life and the last seven days.

In this article we take a deep dive into each metric; definition, calculation, and where to find it in Marketscape, but most importantly, meaning and usage.

 

Some of these metrics include trend information and county or state benchmarks.

 

Section 1 - Top Physician Metrics

As the name implies, the metrics in this section of the Sales Spotlight or the Sales Spotlight email you will find some of the most helpful and insightful metrics to help you evaluate the selected Physician as a referral source.

 

 

Hospice Utilization (Mortalities)

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Definition

This metric is a percentage that shows the selected physician's patients usage of hospice. We tie this closely to the need for hospice by taking the percentage from the set of patients who died during the year. Here is a way to simplify  thinking about this metric: of patients treated by the selected physician within 6 months of death, this metric is the percent of deceased patients who were receiving hospice care at the time of death.

 

 Metrics Calculation

 

 This image shows who we count the patients in this metric. For a patient to be counted, they must have died during the one year reporting period, and they must have been treated by the selected physician within 6 months of their death. Then, really the only difference is whether the patient was on hospice care. If the above limitations apply, we have the following:

Numerator - count of patients on hospice.

Denominator - count of all patients.

 

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• On the Physician Explore page in the row for the selected physician.
• A quarterly version of this metric can be found on the Analyze page for the selected physician under the Utilization tab in the table, Hospice Utilization (Mortalities)

 

 

Patient Volume/Annual Medicare FFS Patients

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Definition

The Patient Volume Conversation Starter includes three metrics:

• Annual Patient Count (FFS) - (misnamed in Sales Spotlight as Annual Medicare FFS Patients) - 6,534 in this example - This is the count of distinct Medicare FFS patients treated by the physician during the one-year reporting period (where the physician was listed as the performing physician on a professional claim).
• Physician Hospice Patients - (Shortened to "Hospice Patients" in Conversation Starters) - 392 in this example -This is the cumber of the Physician's distinct patients who received hospice care during the one-year reporting period (from Attended, Three Months Prior, and Last Claimed patient counts).
• Patients 3 Months Prior - For the selected physician, this is the count of patients admitted to hospice care that the doctor treated within three months prior to admission.

The Sales Spotlight Conversation Starter says, "during the three month reporting period." This is not correct. We do not calculate any metrics on a three month reporting period.

 

 

Metrics Calculation

Annual Patient Count is a simple count from the claims.

Physician Hospice Patients is a union of the three counts, Attended, Three Months Prior, and Last Claimed patient counts. Because a patient could be counted in more than one of these claim types during the reporting period, we do not add the counts together. Each patient is only counted once, even if they are counted in more than one claim type.

   

See Patient Counts and Claim Types for more information.

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• Both metrics are included in Physician Explore page for the selected physician.
• On the Analyze page for the selected physician, under the Patient Population tab, in the Patient Volume table.
• On the Analyze page for the selected physician, under the Destinations tab, in the Hospice Destinations table, in the bottom row of the Hospice Patients (Overall) column.

 

 

Top Hospice Destinations

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In both cases, the names of the Hospices are links to the Analyze page for that hospice.

 

Definition

Listed are the three hospices who admitted the largest count of patients treated by the selected Physician

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• On the Analyze page for the selected physician, under the Destinations tab, in the Hospice Destinations table.
• The number one (highest) affiliated hospice is listed in the Explore page in the row for the selected physician in the column, Highest Affiliation Hospice.

 

Hospice ALOS (Average Length of Stay)

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	No Conversation Starter - this metric is removed with Conversation Starters on.

 

Definition

The average number of days the listed physician's patients spent in any Hospice, for patients discharged from Hospice during the one-year reporting period and treated by the physician within 3 months prior to Hospice admission.

 

Metrics Calculation

For patients discharged during the reporting period and who were treated by the selected physician within 3 months of admission to hospice, we count the number of days in each stay (going back up to 3 years) then divide by the number of patients for whom the metric applies.

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• On the Physician Explore page in the row for the selected physician in the column for Hospice ALOS.
• On the Analyze page for the selected physician, under the Utilization tab, in the Hospice Length of Stay and Mortalities table, there is a more focused version of this metric, called Hospice ALOS (Mortalities).

 

Section 2 - Our Agency Relationship

Once we start looking at the Our Agency Relationship section of Sales Spotlight, we have switched from metrics about the selected physician to metrics about your agency.

 

Hospitalization Rate within 30-days of Hospice Discharge

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Usage

Hospitalization rates show your agency's success rate at keeping hospice patients out of the hospital.

Two additional metrics are included in this Spotlight.

• To the left of the main metric (1.32%) is the competitive advantage. In this case the arrow, pointing down, shows that your agency's metric is 5.99% lower than the listed competitor.
• Beneath the main metric (1.32%) is the metric for your competitor and their name.

All of the details are written out as a sentence in the Sales Spotlight email or when Conversation Starters are on.

 

Definition

This is our broadest view of hospitalization in Marketscape. For an event to be a hospitalization, the patient would need to be admitted to inpatient care during a post-acute stay or in the 30 days following post-acute discharge.

Any Length of Stay - We calculate this metric on a stay of any length in part to distinguish this metric from readmission rates that have a fixed 30 day period. Other issues to consider:

• In many cases, an admission to inpatient care from post-acute care triggers/requires a discharge from the post-acute stay. The exception is a home health transfer where the episode/stay continues. When a discharge does occur, we count the event as a hospitalization, and the 30 days post discharge don't apply.
• In the case of a patient who is discharged from post-acute care, we then consider that stay/event a hospitalization if the patient is admitted to inpatient care within 30 days of post-acute discharge.

See Hospitalization for more information.

 

Metrics Calculation

Hospitalization is the number of patients hospitalized during a post-acute stay or within 30 days after discharge divided by the total number of patients admitted to the post-acute agency, times 100%.

The equation looks like this:

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight, you can find these metrics:

• On the Hospice Explore page in the row for your agency in the column for ALOS (days).
• On the Analyze page for your agency, under the Quality and Operational tab, in the table Trended LOS. There is a breakdown of length of stay metrics in this table.

 

End of Life Visits

There are four counts featured in the Sales Spotlight for your hospice that focus on counts of care provided to patients during the last week of life. The following table shows the four metrics.

Quick Definitions	Last Seven Days	Last Three Days
RN Visits	The average count of RN visits to patients treated by your hospice during the last seven days of life.	The average count of RN visits to patients treated by your hospice during the last three days of life.
All Visits - RN, LPN, SW, and Aides	The average count of RN visits to patients treated by your hospice during the last seven days of life.	The average count of RN visits to patients treated by your hospice during the last seven days of life.

 

Visits Last 7 Days

 

Usage

The last seven days of a patient's life is that period where the patient is actively dying, and the type and frequency of care should change to reflect the different patient and family requirements. Although there is no numeric standard, CMS considers that excellent service in this period would include an increase of total visits and also a larger ratio of visits by RN's to keep pace with changes in care requirements.

 

	Counts of Visits Last Seven Days
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RN Visits
All Visits - RN, LPN, SW, and Aides

For the last 7 days of visits we have two metrics for your agency; an average count of RN visits and an average count of all visits.

Two additional metrics are included in this Spotlight.

• To the left of the main metric (3.46%) is the competitive advantage. In this case the arrow, pointing down, shows that your agency's metric is 16.50% higher than the listed competitor.
• Beneath the main metric (3.46%) is the metric for your competitor and their name.

All of the details are written out as a sentence in the Sales Spotlight email or when Conversation Starters are on.

 

Definition

• RN Visits - This metric is the average count of visits by an RN during the last 7 days of life for patients treated by your agency.
• All Visits - This metric is the average count of visits by all staff during the last 7 days of life for patients treated by your agency. This includes visits by registered nurses, social workers, licensed practical nurses, and aides.

 

 

Metrics Calculation

The average is calculated by counting the number of patients who died while on service at your agency and counting up visits in the last 7 days to all of those patients and dividing by the number of patients. 

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• The All Visits - Last 7 Days, can be found on the Hospice Explore page in the row for your agency.
• All of the Last 3 day and Last 7 day metrics can be found on the Anlayze page for your agency under the Quality and Operational tab, in the tables, Visit Type - Last Seven Days, and Visit Type - Last Three Days.

 

Visits Last 3 Days

	Counts of Visits Last Three Days
	Conversation Starters Off	Conversation Starters On	Sales Spotlight Email
RN Visits
All Visits - RN, LPN, SW, and Aides

 

For the last 3 days of visits we have two metrics for your agency; an average count of RN visits and an average count of all visits.

Two additional metrics are included in this Spotlight.

• To the left of the main metric (2.05%) is the competitive advantage. In this case the arrow, pointing down, shows that your agency's metric is 16.50% higher than the listed competitor.
• Beneath the main metric (2.05%) is the metric for your competitor and their name.

- Be careful! - Because the period for this count (3 days) is so small, the counts themselves will be very small, generally between 1.5 and 2.5 visits. As a result, you will sometimes see a huge competitive difference in the percent - see 30.60% above. Keep this percentage in perspective. That huge percentage, in this case, represents about a half of a visit in the average.

 

All of the details are written out as a sentence in the Sales Spotlight email or when Conversation Starters are on.

 

Definition

• RN Visits - This metric is the average count of visits by an RN during the last 3 days of life for patients treated by your agency.
• All Visits - This metric is the average count of visits by all staff during the last 3 days of life for patients treated by your agency. This includes visits by registered nurses, social workers, licensed practical nurses, and aides.

 

 

Metrics Calculation

The average is calculated by counting the number of patients who died while on service at your agency and counting up visits in the last 3 days to all of those patients and dividing by the number of patients. 

 

Where can I find this metric?

In addition to the Sales Spotlight content, you can find these metrics:

• All of the Last 3 day and Last 7 day metrics can be found on the Anlayze page for your agency under the Quality and Operational tab, in the tables, Visit Type - Last Seven Days, and Visit Type - Last Three Days.