Align Consulting Group

Short-term disruption is often necessary to drive long-term success. At Align Consulting Group, we help our clients navigate strategic changes—whether it’s implementing new systems, optimizing admissions, restructuring teams, or rebranding—by ensuring that the disruption is purposeful and aligned with their long-term vision. While change can create temporary challenges, our process is designed to minimize inefficiencies, improve financial performance, and enhance patient outcomes, ultimately positioning our clients for sustainable growth. What specific challenges are you facing that require a strategic shift?

??

The Evolution of Healthcare Call Center KPIs The way we measure call center success in healthcare, especially in behavioral health, has completely transformed. It’s no longer just about answering calls quickly or tracking call volume. Today’s best operators are leveraging AI, automation, predictive analytics, and real-time insights to redefine performance. Let’s take a look at how far we’ve come—and where we’re headed. The Traditional Era: Call centers were reactive, focused on basic metrics like call volume, response time, and average handle time (AHT). Success was measured by speed and efficiency, not by caller experience or long-term outcomes. Core KPIs in This Era: ? Speed to Lead – How quickly an inquiry is contacted. ? Average Handle Time (AHT) – Total talk time, hold time, and wrap-up. ? Call Abandonment Rate – Percentage of dropped calls. ? Call-to-Admission Conversion – Percentage of calls resulting in an admission. Limitations: ? While these KPIs were useful, they lacked deeper insights into caller behavior, staff effectiveness, or strategic growth opportunities. The Data-Driven Shift: Operators moved beyond simple call handling efficiency and began measuring lead quality, conversion potential, and the overall patient journey. Key Innovations in This Era: ? Lead Source Performance – Identifying which marketing channels generate high-value calls. ? First Call Resolution (FCR) – Measuring how many calls are resolved without a follow-up. ? Disposition Rates & Types – Understanding why some patients aren’t moving forward with treatment. Limitations: ? More data provided better insights, but operators still relied heavily on manual processes and historical reporting, limiting their ability to make real-time decisions. AI-Driven Optimization: The rise of AI and automation has completely changed the game. Call centers have stopped guessing and started using predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI-powered insights to improve every interaction. Game-Changing KPIs in This Era: ? Real-Time Sentiment Score – AI detects frustration or distress instantly for both callers and agents. ? AI-Powered Conversion Probability – Predicts the likelihood of a caller admitting, regardless of channel source. ? Voice Biometrics Matching – Identifies repeat callers even if they use different phone numbers. ? AI-Generated Call Summarization – Automates post-call documentation. ? Dynamic Call Routing Effectiveness – AI assigns calls to the best-fit agent in real time. What’s Changing? The call center is no longer just a gatekeeper of call volume, it has become a proactive admissions engine. Those leading these departments, look less like salespeople, and more like data analysts, leveraging technology to optimize both efficiency and patient outcomes.

Great post from Tyler S.M. Chepolis

Admissions teams are on the frontlines of the Healthcare tech revolution.

Investors: Why Buy When You Can Build? For years, behavioral health investors defaulted to buying existing programs—but is that really the best strategy anymore? The reality is inventory always lags behind demand. Many facilities on the market are outdated, struggling with bad payer contracts, or locked into inefficient models. But here’s the opportunity: Standing up a new facility is now cheaper and faster than ever. With specialized teams handling licensing, payer contracts, operations, and clinical setup, investors can build a modern, scalable, and payer-optimized behavioral health program—without inheriting someone else’s problems. - Lower cost to launch - Full control over contracts & pricing - Designed for today’s market, not yesterday’s inefficiencies The question isn’t whether to invest—it’s whether you want to build the future or buy the past.

The Missing Link in Behavioral Health Strategy is Available Right Now Historically, reimbursement negotiations have been one-sided, with payers dictating the terms while providers operated in the dark. Without transparency, behavioral health organizations struggled to benchmark rates, assess market value, and identify patterns of underpayment. Now, with payer-negotiated rate data unlocking contracted reimbursement rates across providers, that uncertainty is over. For the first time, we can see exactly what payers reimburse for the same services across different facilities, geographies, and networks. For behavioral health—an industry plagued by inconsistent reimbursement, opaque managed care contracts, and razor-thin margins—this is a game-changer. What Payer Transparency Data Means for Behavioral Health Providers Behavioral health providers have long been underpaid compared to other healthcare sectors, largely due to a lack of leverage at the negotiating table. With access to reimbursement transparency data, providers can now identify: ? Which payers offer the highest rates for specific levels of care (Detox, RTC, PHP, IOP, OP, MAT) ? Which services yield the highest revenue potential ? Where they are being underpaid relative to market averages Rather than blindly accepting rates, providers can now negotiate contracts from a position of strength, restructure service lines to prioritize higher-margin offerings, and drop payers that aren't viable. Business Development: Smarter Expansion & Market Positioning Behavioral health is one of the most fragmented and rapidly consolidating sectors in healthcare. Reimbursement intelligence provides a strategic advantage for operators and investors by enabling them to: ? Pinpoint the most lucrative regions for new facilities based on payer reimbursement trends ? Determine which service lines will generate the highest returns before launching them ? Optimize pricing for self-pay programs based on local market rates For those exploring M&A opportunities, contracted reimbursement data offers a clear picture of a facility’s true financial potential, allowing investors to accurately assess valuations based on payer contracts and revenue efficiency. Why Investors Should Be Paying Attention For private equity firms, family offices, and healthcare investors, behavioral health has always been a high-upside, high-risk investment. Historically, the lack of standardized reimbursement models has made predicting financial performance challenging, leading to conservative underwriting and missed opportunities. Rate transparency data changes the game. Investors can now: ? Accurately value facilities based on real reimbursement data ? Forecast revenue with greater precision, reducing risk exposure ? Enhance EBITDA margins by optimizing payer mix and contract strategy Simply put, insight into payer-negotiated rates introduces a new era of smarter, more transparent, and scalable behavioral health investments.

Love this!

The Healthcare Monopoly Is Breaking—Here’s Why For my entire career, the behavioral healthcare industry has been dominated by massive organizations that roll up competition and squeeze smaller providers out of the market. With vast resources, they’ve built systems designed to keep independents at a disadvantage—creating sticky webs that leverage scale, amass enormous data, and refine processes to reinforce their brands—while smaller providers struggle for viability. I know this because I was part of it. I worked for some of the largest healthcare organizations, building processes that leveraged data, analytics, and strategy to drive growth and efficiency. I saw firsthand how these companies used intelligence and automation to outmaneuver smaller competitors—not because they provided better care, but because they had the infrastructure to optimize operations, maximize revenue, and dominate the market. It’s also not just about size; it’s about access to insights. Large healthcare systems harness advanced analytics, AI-driven decision-making, and highly refined operational strategies to maintain their advantage. Meanwhile, smaller providers—often delivering the most patient-centered, high-impact care—are left playing catch-up, forced to compete without the same level of intelligence or efficiency. That landscape is changing. Great strategy, business intelligence, and innovation no longer belong exclusively to companies with entire departments dedicated to data. AI and business intelligence are more accessible than ever, and a growing movement is committed to democratizing the tools that drive operational excellence and financial success. Smaller providers no longer have to operate at a disadvantage. With the right systems, insights, and execution, they can compete—and win—against the giants. The future of healthcare isn’t about who has the deepest pockets. It’s about who delivers the best outcomes. #HealthcareInnovation #BusinessIntelligence #AIinHealthcare #LevelThePlayingField #AlignConsulting

If your consultant sounds like this...