Overview: About Small Hospital Innovations (SHI)
SHI was founded a decade ago by two emergency physicians determined to provide much-needed services for a community hospital in Florida. Today, more than 425 SHI providers are meeting the staffing needs of 19 small and medium-sized hospitals in five states, delivering multi-specialty care in Emergency Medicine, Radiology, Hospital Medicine, Anesthesia, and Intensive Care. Responding to the needs of community hospitals, SHI has grown exponentially, opening 12 new programs in the last six months alone. In turn, Ventra Health responds to SHI, quickly offering RCM support to aid their rapidly growing infrastructure.
A Strategic Partnership
A strategic RCM partner can provide the expertise to help a practice group achieve their business goals. Ventra’s deep bench of specialists has supported SHI’s growth over the years, providing an end-to-end billing solution for their multiple hospital-based professional service lines. Taking a collaborative approach, the team at Ventra and SHI have implemented project plans and a roadmap specifically designed to serve SHI’s revenue cycle needs.
“Taking over the department of a hospital can be challenging from a clinical staffing perspective,” says SHI Founder and President Ruddy Valdes, DO. “Having the right partner to manage our billing needs is critical.”
Ventra understands the key goals, priorities, and needs of SHI. With this alignment, the partnership executes initiatives to achieve successful results.
A Custom Playbook for Multi-Specialty Expansion
Working with community hospitals, SHI does not always have months of preparation before they start delivering services. Flexibility and responsiveness to meet a “fast start” challenge requires support from both clinical and billing sides. Engaging a team effort, Ventra and SHI work closely together during implementation of a new program.
Over their 10-year partnership, Ventra and SHI have fine-tuned their playbook for putting the building blocks in place, focusing on provider enrollment, education, coding, and AR management. Leveraging Ventra’s powerful data & analytics resources, the enterprise multi-specialty Client Success Team reviews key performance indicators weekly with SHI leadership, and they monitor cash flow projections and metrics.
“It’s a great relationship because I can take on any specialty at any given time, even a specialty that may be new to our group,” Dr. Valdes says. “Ventra gives us the confidence and support needed to grow.”
“Ventra gives us the confidence and support needed to grow.”
—Ruddy Valdes, DO, President, Small Hospital Innovations
Scale and Expertise to Move Quickly
The full strength of the partnership was on display last fall when a large physician staffing organization abruptly ceased operations, leaving dozens of hospitals without support.
Strategizing with Ventra, SHI promptly offered emergency services to four hospitals, launching programs with 24 hours’ notice. Ventra’s Onboarding, Service Delivery, and Client Success Teams scaled quickly to put systems in place within a few days.
“We implemented a solution-focused approach,” notes Gilda Romero, Client Success Vice President for Ventra Health. “Our Ventra team initiated an action plan to ensure timely revenue generation and reimbursement optimization.”
Within six months, the billing revenue came in exactly as projected.
Shared Values Forges Strong Partnership
Going forward, ECC and Ventra are continuing to fine-tune reporting, expand the metrics available through the self-service dashboard, and search for opportunities to optimize processes and improve reimbursement. ECC also plans to leverage Ventra’s contracting expertise to evaluate and renegotiate its contracts with both payers and facilities.
Close collaboration and a high degree of responsiveness on both sides has created the partnership needed for long-term success.
“Engagement and commitment from ECC’s leadership plays a huge role in the results we have been able to accomplish,” says AJ Hobbs, Client Success Vice President for Ventra Health. “Open communication and alignment of goals is building a strong relationship between our teams.”
Managing Growth and Optimization
Expansion is only part of the business model, however. SHI and Ventra are also focused on overcoming payer complexities and delivering continuous improvement in the existing programs. Managing both goals simultaneously is a complicated endeavor, but one that is accomplished through partnership and innovation.
“It comes down to accountability and attention to detail,” Dr. Valdes says.
SHI and Ventra teams from each specialty meet formally twice a week to review performance, provide updates on operational initiatives, and discuss strategies to optimize revenue. In addition to new-program implementation progress, the meetings cover overall business updates such as provider documentation trending, collections per month, AR performance, and real-time cash flow insights. In between meetings, the teams are in regular contact to address any questions that come up.
As standard business practice, Ventra’s data analysts also provide daily review of SHI’s billing performance metrics, monitoring for irregularities and working with teams across Ventra to proactively mitigate issues before they can impact revenue.
“I have colleagues working with other revenue cycle partners who only see what comes in a report once a month,” Dr. Valdes says. “I call my Ventra Client Success Team anytime—day, night, or weekend.”
With enterprise-level RCM support and a partner providing best practices in revenue cycle management, SHI plans to continue to expand programs and service lines, increasing their capacity to deliver care to more patients.
Download Success Story as PDF“My goal is to be one of Ventra Health’s biggest customers.”
—Ruddy Valdes, DO, President, Small Hospital Innovations
