External Provider Scheduling

Washington, DC

We are sharing this update to provide background regarding our External Provider Scheduling system for those who may not be familiar with this effort as well as an update on the current state of deployment and our strategy for future expansion.  We look forward to proving additional updates and answering your questions at the next IVC Quarterly briefing.

The External Provider Scheduling (EPS) platform is a tool that improves the process of scheduling Veterans with Community Care Providers by supplying information to VA Community Care schedulers on who is available, when they are available, and where they are located. EPS connects federal and commercial health systems to streamline care navigation activities, allowing VA Community Care schedulers to work through multiple EMR platforms simultaneously, in a singular user interface, and book directly into available community provider appointments in real-time. It eliminates steps in the scheduling process for both VA schedulers and community provider offices and thus offers an enhanced and more efficient customer experience.

Implementation of the EPS platform started with two pilots in Orlando and Columbia, initiated in 2022 and 2023, where feedback loops with both sites and providers contributed to system enhancements and process improvements. The Year 1 Rollout of EPS, initiated in January of 2024, was planned to include one VAMC per VISN with the intention of expanding to the remaining facilities in subsequent years. Year 1 sites were chosen based on community care market conditions as well as level of interest in participation. Currently, there are 1,222 active providers across 40 specialties in place at a total of 16 VA Medical Centers. Results to date for year 1 implementation include:

·       Approximately 800 appointments being booked per month across the 16 participating VA Medical Centers.

·       59% of appointments booked with EPS-enabled providers have been scheduled through EPS.

·       Observing an approximately 50% reduction in the number of days from File Entry Date (FED) to First Scheduled (North Star Metric) when EPS is utilized.

As we have learned from our implementation experience thus far, a critical dependency for the success of the EPS program is garnering community provider participation in this program.  We know that for EPS to be effective at medical centers, a critical mass of community care providers must be participating. We think about this as a saturation point, which must be reached for each category of care.  Given this dependency, we will be taking a more focused, regional approach to roll-out over the next 12 months. While our goal will be to maintain the EPS program at most VA Medical Centers currently utilizing EPS, we will be focusing our next phase of roll-out and expansion in a more limited number of VISNs, corresponding to regions of the country where market conditions are most favorable for on-boarding community care providers.  This will allow us to achieve EPS roll-out in up to 50 or more VA Medical Centers across the six VISNs that are selected.  Once we achieve success on this next phase of expansion, we will work to expand to every VISN and medical center across the enterprise, which will likely occur in subsequent years. IVC plans to provide an update soon and will provide information on which VISNs we will be focused on as soon we make that decision in partnership with VHA leadership.