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LHIN is a statewide
all payer data sharing program which provides participating hospitals access
to the most current, comprehensive patient-level data available through SHARECOR.
This data is collected for both Inpatients and Ambulatory Surgery patients.
Hospitals of all sizes
use the Louisiana Health Information Network (LHIN) in a variety of ways.
The examples listed below demonstrate just a few of the most common uses for
the LHIN data.
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Physician
Recruitment. By documenting the patient population, hospitals are
able to demonstrate potential patient loads to physician candidates.
This is especially helpful for small and rural facilities trying to
attract physicians to their hospitals. |
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Payer
Negotiations. As managed care becomes a more significant force in
hospital and physician reimbursement, facilities want to insure that
both the hospital and the medical staff are ready to respond to
contracting opportunities. This includes the ability to participate in
at-risk contracts at rates that are attractive to payers and profitable
for providers. The LHIN data contains payer information by product line
and/or DRG/ICD9 codes, and allows for in-depth analysis of the patients
in the market (by age, zip code, payer category, etc.). The LHIN
program is a well-known and accepted method of analysis by the payer
community. This data can also be used to verify “sole community
provider” status.
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Physician
Efficiency Evaluation. How often have you heard “my patients are
sicker”? With the availability of patient information by physician, as
well as access to the Refined DRG Severity Adjustment software, hospital
administrators have the ability to analyze practice pattern data and
have a tool to assist the physicians in the delivery of quality and
cost-efficient services. The ability to compare physicians to their
peers within the market or across the state, is a powerful and useful
part of LHIN. (Dr. Jones is charging $5,000 more than Dr. Smith for a
hip replacement? Why?). In addition, Thomson Healthcare offers their IMPAQ
Series of reports (Improved Margin, Profitability, Appropriateness and
Quality), that further assists hospitals in their quality management
efforts.
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Prospective
Network Modeling. Would it be beneficial for your facility to
affiliate or merge with another? Would some physician networks be
better for your patient mix than others? Using the data to model
various networking opportunities is a major benefit to the member
hospitals. Affiliate management can use this data to analyze the
efficiency of an established hospital network.
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Capital
Equipment Expenditures. When a physician, or group of physicians,
requests the purchase of a new piece of capital equipment, the data can
be used to analyze the return on investment (Is there a caseload to
support the purchase? How long will it take to realize a return on
investment?).
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Where does the data
for the LHIN come from?
Each member hospital
provides a complete UB92 data set for all inpatients. Typically, this data
comes from the hospital’s MIS department or Business Office (and usually can
be generated from the billing system). All fields from the billing form are
stored in the main program database and can be accessed by any member
hospital, as long as they submit the same data. For example, if your
hospital does not submit physician I.D. numbers, you will not have access to
the other member physician I.D. numbers. Note: This data is not available
to the public; it is only available to member hospitals.
What else can I get
from the data?
There are many other
uses for patient data including: Outcomes measurement, hospital efficiency
and effectiveness evaluation, physician practice pattern analysis and line
item detail/clinical pathways analysis.
If you would like to
participate in this data sharing program or would like some more
information, please email
or call us at (504) 837-6266. This program is only available to
hospitals in Louisiana |
