New Office Visits

Did you know?

The AARP has reported that in this “baby boomer” time, 65,000 Medicare eligible beneficiaries are signing up for the program each month.
Despite this, New Office Visit activity appears to be decreasing (based on the latest data from RTMD, which now serves healthcare organizations in a Medicare beneficiary area consisting of 23 states and the District of Columbia).
The intensity of service including the time spent with the patient has increased. This affects the capacity of a provider to focus on volume and may reflect the utilization of other non-acute providers (i.e., retail clinics).

Why should I care?

New Office Visits have always been a critical access point into the U.S. healthcare system and present an opportunity to serve.
This encounter offers acute care facilities a strategic value around how we organize our infrastructure in terms of access, quality, and costs.
Examining trends in New Office Visits can help raise important questions about how a hospital tailors its existing services:
- Are New Office Visits becoming more time and resource intensive, resulting in the inability to see more patients?
- Are patients seeking care in different settings, such as urgent care, extended hour facilities, or retail clinics?
- Are payment policies for testing, especially those for co-pays, driving patients to alternative settings?
- Are immunization, lifestyle, and technological advances impacting utilization?

What should I do?

RTMD advises each facility to:

Research trends in New Office Visits in your market by volume, type (time spent), content (principal diagnosis), and reimbursement.
Review your market for new providers that represent non-traditional physician settings, such as urgent care facilities.
Study outmigration and referrals for New Office Visits.
Examine your new patient and Medicare patient policies. If volume is down, determine if this is because your physicians are not accepting new Medicare patients.