This article is brought to you by Trella Health. This article is based on an interview that took place during a virtual Q&A discussion with Jonas Fortenberry, Revenue Enablement Manager at Trella Health. The virtual Q&A took place during the Growth Sales Summit held on January 12, 2022. This is an excerpt from the session, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Hospice News: Jonas, why don’t you give us a little introduction to Trella Health and what you see happening in the current hospice referral landscape?

Jonas Fortenberry: Sure. I’m Jonas Fortenberry, Revenue Enablement Manager for Trella Health. Today we’re going to talk about referral and growth strategies for hospice organizations, as well as a few of our customers’ success stories. We will also discuss how Trella, or other data sources like EMRs can help organizations achieve success.

Trella Health is the preeminent data analytics company in the space, focusing on data. We were founded in 2015, with a special relationship with [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] (CMS) called innovator status. We have direct access to CMS’s database for Medicare part A and part B data. We’ll talk about the importance of those data sources and how to utilize the insights for your hospice organization.

Coming from the provider side, I know there are a lot of special relationships and a lot of special care that’s taken in hospice; more specifically, providing good quality of care for patients and the overall benefits of hospice, which are so important.

Hospice News: Can you talk about your recent benchmark report and the recent PlayMaker Health acquisition?

Fortenberry: If you haven’t heard yet already, Trella recently acquired PlayMaker Health. I’m assuming most people know of PlayMaker Health and probably some folks out there use it as well. They provide market intelligence and consumer relationship management and are the preeminent leader in the post-acute world for CRM and market and business development, which tracks organizations referrals and documents the information for the agency.

It was a good marriage of our market intelligence engagement and the relationship we have with CMS with that full suite of comprehensive data with Medicare Part A, and Medicare Part B, which is now the most complete set of Medicare Advantage in commercial data for patients and folks aged 65-plus in the U.S.

With the acquisition we’ll be able to give folks on the business development side of things the market leader in CRM, as well as complete market data. That’s the long-term goal; to integrate those two products. Organizations can use it to both manage their pipeline and visit with physicians and facilities in those groups, as well as the data of knowing where to go to speak to those people in the right places, especially in the world we’re in now, where time is important.

Turning to the benchmark report, we have the benefit of having a large customer base that we can reach out to and ask about priorities. One of the things we did to plan for 2022 was understand priorities of hospice organizations and their top priority as they look to grow.

Hospice News: How can hospices get that big picture and gain a firm grasp of understanding when it comes to their marketing potentially?

Fortenberry: It’s not necessarily about what to fix. It’s how to optimize or be more impactful. Where’s the right place to start? Asking that question to understand market potential is a good one when organizations begin to use Trella or are evaluating Trella to understand what the need and importance is.

The first step is to fully understand your current referral partnerships. That’s the easiest low-hanging fruit to understand because every agency has that data where they’re getting their direct referrals, managing, and understanding their hospice directorships. That’s something that you don’t really need a huge amount of data sources to do, but it involves really auditing yourself and understanding where we can focus those first partnerships.

The second, is you really need visibility into your competition and in the market overall. That’s where a data source can help. We’ll talk a little bit more about Part A and Part B, and the upstream totality of the continuum of care is even more important on the hospice side of things. When we talk about the value of hospice, it’s things like average length of stay, diagnostic categories, and focusing on the right places with the right partnerships.

Then third, is the right people in the right markets. Part of that with the data and understanding physician relationships is, are they valuable? Are you truly focusing on the right referral source? Having the right data to understand that, whether it’s a physician to focus on or when a referral partner you don’t need to spend your time on then, it’s about having the right people in place. By no means is data a replacement for everything, but making sure you’re focusing on the right resources and the right time and places can really help you focus on what to do in growth areas.

Hospice News: What are some tips that you have for hospices, as far as improving their conversion rates?

Fortenberry: That’s a great question, and that’s something that ties into differentiating from the competition. This is one that really is on that relationship side of things or differentiating yourself in the market. On the provider side of things, it’s about focusing on the partnerships that you have and want to strengthen. It can be as simple as going and picking up referrals in person.

One of the things that we did as soon as we got a referral was understand if the family had been talked to about the hospice benefit. It’s one that I thought personally I had done in communicating with my family about what my grandfather was going through in life. Clearly, I didn’t do a good enough job in explaining it because they put him on hospice three or four days before he passed. We did not get the full benefit of the value of what hospice at the end of life can do.

We’ll talk a little bit more about that later, but education is really important, both from referral sources to families, to discharge planning.

The number of patients that come out of an inpatient stay without any post-acute interruptions is much higher than you would expect it to be. We talked about education on the facility or inpatient level and having conversations with the families.

Two, is the number of patients that leave an inpatient stay that are discharged from a hospital without hospice instructions, but then within 30 days enter into hospice care. That number, every time we look at a facility, is way higher than I would think it would be. That again goes to education, setting suitability, and getting in at the right time.

The totality of the claims allows you to see what facilities and what physicians are getting in terms of timing when they’re referring to hospice or when their patients are going to hospice. You can only improve your conversion rate if you’re getting more upstream early and having those conversations, there’s just huge value there.

Hospice News: We also have another question in regards to that as far as how hospices can engage with minority populations to strengthen that referral network there; that is definitely an underserved area in hospice. What is a piece of advice that you would give for that?

Fortenberry: I wish I could speak better to that, but I think the first place to start is to ask if there’s something to strengthen; whether it’s diversifying the underserved populations or the rural populations, which are still issues today. Also, staffing is an issue too, so that impacts care.

I would say the first thing is to acknowledge the need and the deficiency and then put a team together to understand how to impact that. That’s the same thing around performance metrics, too. A lot of the things you’ll see in a data source, like at Trella, is where you’re outperforming competition, but also where you might need to improve. It’s important to say, “Hey, where can we get better?” The opposite of improving a bad thing can only be a good thing and can help you differentiate in that sense too.

This excerpt has been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full discussion on video, please visit:

Trella Health (formerly Excel Health) is a data-driven technology solution that empowers post-acute care providers and their referral sources to work together across the care continuum. Learn more at www.trellahealth.com.