Providers Tap Vendors to Support Rolling Forecasting Transition

A new approach to healthcare financial planning is emerging. Rolling forecasting provides a more flexible approach to healthcare financial planning and analysis, especially after organizations were hit hard by an unexpected global pandemic over the last couple of years.

The rolling approach is replacing the static yearly budget for healthcare organizations and vendors Strata Decision Technology and Syntellis Performance Solutions are helping providers make the transition, according to market research firm KLAS.

In its report “Financial Planning & Analysis 2022,” KLAS reports that Strata and Syntellis are the two main financial planning and analysis vendors that organizations are using to go from the yearly budget to rolling forecasting.

The report shows that the financial planning and analysis solutions provide capital planning and tracking, long-range planning, operational/ short-term budgeting, performance reporting, and rolling forecasting. These are the core functionalities associated with financial planning and analysis solutions for healthcare organizations. Secondary functionalities include continuous improvement, labor productivity management, monthly reporting, patient information, and strategic pricing.

Strata customers tend to have deep solution adoption across the core functionalities, KLAS reports based on customer interviews. At least half of customers consistently use capital planning and tracking, long-range planning, operational/ short-term budgeting, and performance reporting.

Notably, the adoption of the rolling forecasting functionality is low among all users, with 26 to 50 percent of Strata customers saying they use the functionality and under a quarter of Syntellis customers.

Deeper adoption of operational and short-term budgeting capabilities is driving budgeting process efficiency and accuracy, particularly for Syntellis customers, of which the majority as adopted the capabilities, KLAS reports. However, more support is needed for broader adoption of the core functionality.

“Use of other functionalities has a similarly positive effect on budgeting efficiency; however, overall adoption of these tools is lower. One reason is a lower level of guidance,” KLAS states in the report.

“Some customers share that due to inadequate training, their main source of help for maximizing the solution’s potential is the support personnel. While these resources are responsive and knowledgeable, proactive help to achieve deeper adoption is lacking, as is proactive communication about system bugs.”

Integration with other key health IT systems is also driving success among customers. Strata is leading data integration with systems like the EHR and the organization’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Customers also report leveraging decision support integrations.

“This depth of integration allows customers to aggregate needed information to meaningfully plan for the short and long term,” the report states.

In contrast, lack of integration with key health IT systems does not provide the level of insight and detail healthcare organizations need for proactive planning, the report adds. Both vendors need to work on workforce planning solution integration to optimize financial planning and analysis products in the face of widespread healthcare staffing shortages.

Overall, healthcare organizations value partnership, product quality, insights and guidance, positive outcomes, and a future outlook from their financial planning and analysis vendors. Vendor efforts to regularly connect with customers to solve problems and provide variance data to help customers make adjustments were two strengths Strata customers identified, while Syntellis customers saw improved reporting and more streamlined budgeting processes as their vendor’s strengths.

Customers agreed that Strata could use additional functionality to fill the labor management gap and development could be faster. Syntellis customers said the vendor could improve training and response times, as well as communication about known issues with their solution.