Disclaimer: Garry Kauffman is a paid consultant of Vapotherm.

Learn more about Respiratory Department Productivity

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  How to Make Sense of Charting, Charging, Costing, Reimbursement, and Productivity—Fundamentals for Respiratory Therapists in Inpatient Settings
  For many of us during our respiratory care training, we were taught to focus on clinical documentation, which remains the focus for the bedside Respiratory Therapist (RT).
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  What is the difference between Respiratory Care Department Billing Systems vs Productivity Systems?
  Billing and Productivity systems are the backbone allowing Respiratory Departments to demonstrate their financial value and efficiency in performing services. Too often though, they get conflated, where a Billing system serves as the proxy for Productivity — something that should not happen.
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  Who are the key stakeholders in Respiratory Care Department Productivity Systems and How to Leverage them in Advocating for Appropriate Productivity Targets
  I’ve covered elsewhere what Productivity is and how to measure it, so here I’ll focus on why it is absolutely critical to identify, educate, and engage all stakeholders in advocating for appropriate productivity targets. By doing so, the RT leader will optimize her chances of successfully implementing a productivity system in their organization that is standardized, validated, accepted by all communities of interest.
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  What are the Components of the of Respiratory Care Department Micro-Costing System?
  Micro-costing is a method to determine and document the costs of providing a procedure, service, or an episode of care. Micro-costing is a method that measures cost in terms of direct costs, indirect costs, variable costs, benefits, and overhead costs.
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  How are Respiratory Care Department Metrics Selected?
  Before I dig into the specifics of evaluation and selection of performance metrics, it’s worthwhile to review how our respiratory care services and procedures were measured during the early decades of our profession and how dramatic a change we’ve witnessed in just the past few years.
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  How are Respiratory Care Department Productivity Systems Captured and Tracked?
  Having discussed the various performance metrics that are utilized in a previous blog, I’d like to discuss how these metrics are captured, tracked, and used within a Respiratory Care Department.
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  What is Benchmarking and How are Performance Metrics Used for Benchmarking in the Context of RT Department Productivity?
  In a previous blog, I went into detail about various metrics and how to assess the validity of metrics when examining Respiratory Department Productivity. Here I’m going to review commonly used metrics in our hospitals and define each, discuss the validity of each, and how to best capture and use these metrics so that you can effectively establish safe and effective staffing levels to ensure high quality.
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  What Authority/Influence Do Respiratory Care Leaders Have with Regard to Productivity Measures and Benchmarking?
  In talking with Respiratory Therapy leaders about productivity for more than a few years, their responses about their authority range from ‘none’ to ‘done’. Those replying that they have no authority indicate that administration has chosen the metric to use for each department and there is no possibility of replacing this.
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  How are Hospitals and Respiratory Care Departments Reimbursed for Respiratory Care Services?
  For most products, paying for a service or item is a simple transaction based on the listed price. The merchant posts the price, the consumer agrees, makes the payment, and gets the product. As healthcare providers, we are bombarded with the question: ‘Why can’t you operate like other businesses?’