Managed services organizations, or MSOs, can be anything and everything to a provider. Broadly speaking, they deliver the nonclinical services that go into running a practice, which covers everything from practice management technologies to patient experience improvement efforts to population health data and analytics to onboarding services such as enrollment and credentialing … the list goes on.
In some cases, MSOs with strong financial backing are buying up multiple practices to simplify and optimize value-based care arrangements in addition to taking on the operational responsibilities. MSOs, especially the ones acquiring practices, help providers grow their practices by eliminating their need to divide their time between running a business and practicing medicine. In essence, they save time, which of course means they save money. But who is helping the MSOs do the same?
The value of an MSO
About one-third of physicians spend 20 or more hours per week performing administrative and operational tasks — that’s a part-time job on top of their full-time job. And the number of tasks falling into providers’ laps these days continues to grow. Value-based care is no longer a shift, but a reality that requires providers to think, operate, and track data like they never have before. Similarly, telehealth is no longer an ancillary service provided by third parties, but a service expected from consumers that providers must offer to stay competitive. Though these measures are great for care outcomes, access, and costs, these new healthcare modalities do come at another cost: more nonclinical management and a steep learning curve for providers already experiencing burnout.
That’s where MSOs can provide value: by rolling many organizations and their various sites into one larger entity. With a centralized MSO, provider groups can leverage, say, the same claims and enrollments team to handle their payer paperwork and interactions, instead of having duplicate teams at each location performing similar tasks.
The yet-to-be-uncovered value within MSOs
In addition to adding value to provider organizations, MSOs can also generate significant value for themselves. In many cases, as MSOs take on providers’ operations, it’s just a one-to-one trade-off of administrative hassle. Many tasks, such as credentialing, enrollment, and monitoring, look no different to an MSO than to a provider — teams of people using anything from paper and spreadsheets to siloed software to fill out countless payer forms.
There’s little automation in play, which is a strategy well suited for these types of tasks that involve repeat processes with the same provider data. And though seven staff members at the MSO may have freed up the time of 30 staff members across multiple sites, there are still opportunities to increase efficiencies.
What MSOs need is a single store of data to organize the many pieces of provider information flowing in and out daily so that it’s easier for teams to execute tasks across the board. Why should enrollment and credentialing tasks, which require largely the same provider data, live on separate platforms with separate databases? By combining their databases, task execution, and even analytics into one automated solution, MSOs can further centralize their services, resulting in a higher success rate on payer interactions, more time for teams to spend on high-value activities, and greater insights and analytics for business improvement.
As a neutral, industry-wide hub of provider data, Madaket is that solution. With our PDX (provider data exchange) platform, MSOs can build a single data store for provider data across their many sites. Across various provider data applications, we’ve processed more than 4 million transactions, and more than 70% of provider groups have transacted with Madaket, meaning we have accurate, up-to-date data already. Furthermore, with a provider-facing portal, MSOs can more quickly collect new data into an organized, ready-to-use data store. In short, we help managed services organizations manage their service organization.
MSOs fend for providers, but they shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves.
See how Madaket can help you uncover the hidden value in your processes so that you can create more value for your providers.
