My favorite analytic tool in Microsoft Excel is called the pivot table. Rather than relying on the confusing and canned reports provided by our practice management system and EHR, I can use pivot tables to see the data I want to see, sort the data how I want to sort it, and produce actionable and meaningful reports.

For those unfamiliar with pivot tables, pivot tables are a very powerful way to summarize, sort, filter, and group data. They are a feature of Microsoft Excel that allow one to analyze data (e.g., a report of billed charges and reimbursements) in a spreadsheet with ease. Pivot tables allow users to ‘pivot’ or quickly rotate data between rows and columns to analyze information. They also allow users to stack or nest data in rows or columns.

Managers can quickly organize and sort information while including or excluding the data displayed. Changing the way the pivot table displays practice information adds insight into practice operations. In this article, I share five ways that I have used pivot tables to benefit our practice.

1. Provider utilization

Like many specialty practices covering multiple hospitals, we had assigned physicians to certain hospitals and had not changed this resource allocation for several years. Using data from our practice management system and EHR, I created a pivot table looking at the return on investment for each physician’s hospital work. Within the pivot table, I showed procedures, consults, RVUs, and other comparative information. The table demonstrated significant differences in utilization and resulted in changes to our hospital coverage. Not coincidentally, revenues increased.

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Polk & Associates

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