Achieve More Impactful Practice Enhancements by Joining a Cardiovascular Platform

Premier cardiologists don’t want to get bogged down in administrative work that takes time and attention away from patient care. But many cardiology practices struggle with inefficiencies that detract from serving patients and even jeopardize their satisfaction.

When it comes to achieving cardiology practice enhancements that streamline healthcare operations and improve care, joining a cardiovascular platform might not be the first idea that comes to mind. There’s a common misconception that private equity (PE) groups in healthcare focus solely on increasing patient volume.

The right PE-backed platform is instead committed to providing patients with the highest quality cardiovascular care available. And implementing effective practice enhancements is one way to fulfill that mission.

At Cardiovascular Logistics (CVL), we’ve implemented many practice enhancements that improve quality of care while enhancing a practice’s efficiency, broadening their offerings, and increasing their income. An experienced team of professionals like CVL has is key in implementing improvements. In addition, CVL uses the experience and knowledge of Practice Enhancement Councils (PECs)—cross-functional teams that include both operational and clinical representatives from our partner practices. Each PEC focuses on a specific area of interest, such as research, revenue cycle management (RCM), operations, or coding. The goal of these councils is to foster collaboration, facilitate knowledge-sharing, and drive best practices across the platform.

Here are just a few ways the right cardiovascular platform can drive impactful enhancements for your cardiology practice.

Improving the Patient Experience

Wait times, referrals, and third-party reviews are among the many indicators of a patient’s satisfaction with your practice. And while tracking those elements at the individual practice level is helpful, it’s even more effective to compare them to other practices and, if improvement is needed, learn how your peers are achieving better results.

CVL tracks many patient satisfaction measures across our practices, identifies locations that are excelling, and helps others learn from their success. Through discussions with practice leaders, we uncover the unique approaches they’re taking to enhance the patient experience. Our Operations PEC plays a key role in this work by bringing together operational leadership to share strategies that enable practices to meet or exceed key performance indicators (KPIs), as well as stay abreast of Medicare and governmental policies and programs that benefit patients. One such program that CVL has focused on is transitional care management (TCM), a population health strategy designed to bridge gaps in care, reduce hospital readmissions, and improve outcomes. By creating a quicker touchpoint after discharge, TCM supports better health and enhances patient satisfaction by helping to prevent unnecessary hospital stays.

Leveraging Technology for Cardiology Practice Efficiency

Routine tasks like answering calls and scheduling appointments can weigh on your staff and take time away from higher-value work. An innovative cardiovascular platform will continually seek ways to apply the latest technology to streamline processes and avoid inefficiencies. This is especially critical at a time when patient volume is rising, reimbursements are under pressure, and labor is costly and difficult to find.

Case in point, CVL is exploring the potential of AI-powered phone systems that mimic human conversation while efficiently managing all aspects of incoming calls. These tools handle routine tasks—such as appointment rescheduling or call routing—with speed and accuracy, all while providing the feel of a human-centric service. At one affiliate practice, CVL is piloting an AI-enabled transcription service that transforms how physicians document visits—giving them back invaluable time for patients—and evaluating AI tools that can assess a diagnostic study and provide physicians with a preliminary report.

Leveraging technology also means optimizing the existing IT infrastructure within a practice. For instance, through collaboration across our platform we’ve equipped multiple practices to eliminate the waste of managing patient no-shows using automated reminders and callbacks.

Improving Revenue Cycle Management (RCM)

No matter the reimbursement environment, it’s critical to maximize the revenue received for every service provided. A cardiovascular platform has the resources and knowledge to help practices improve RCM through collaboration.

When one CVL affiliate practice was receiving a high percentage of claims denials on a particular diagnostic service, this was discussed at a Revenue Cycle Management PEC meeting. Several practices acknowledged having the same problem. The council members collaborated on a solution that reduced the denial rate and netted more revenue for this service across CVL’s practices.

In addition, our Coding PEC shared effective techniques for improving documentation needed for a new CPT code related to interprofessional communication that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out at the beginning of the year. The PEC leveraged one practice’s insights on the documentation they’ve found critical to a successful claim. They also worked together to ensure each affiliate set up its Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) systems appropriately to capture information needed to bill for a new add-on code for evaluation and management performed for longitudinal care.

Enhancing Quality of Care

Best-in-class practices always strive to improve patient care quality. By joining a cardiovascular platform, they gain access to the resources and expertise to continually raise the bar on quality.

A CVL quality director regularly visits clinics across our platform to learn which protocols are helping them outperform on key quality metrics and bring vendor-agnostic recommendations to other partner practices. By leveraging platform-level best practices and processes, and by collaborating via our Quality councils, affiliates are working together to learn how to implement the following:

• One CVL practice met 100% of the CMS’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) benchmarks in 2024, demonstrating excellence in clinical outcomes, patient engagement, use of technology, and cost-efficiency
• Several CVL practices have achieved the Target: BP™ Gold+ award for four consecutive years—a key measure of success in controlling hypertension
• Several CVL practices have far exceeded the minimum requirements for the Gold+ award for the Check. Change. Control. Cholesterol™ program for several years running

Creating More Efficient Workflows

As mentioned, a benefit of joining the CVL platform is access to the support and resources needed to map out processes and drive efficiencies, especially when implementing new services or expanding current services. The CVL team works directly with each practice to map processes from start to finish—defining what each step involves and who needs to handle it, and ensuring all the required documentation is completed and submitted to support accurate billing. For example, when one affiliate began expanding their Remote Physiologic Monitoring (RPM) program, the CVL team jumped in to outline documentation requirements, coordinate patient and staff education, and negotiate vendor agreements, among other critical tasks.

Streamlining Clinical Trial Management

Leading cardiology practices participate in clinical trials to give patients access to the most innovative cardiovascular treatments and improve patient outcomes. Clinical research allows physicians to contribute to innovation, keeps them up to date on the latest techniques and technologies, and elevates practices in the medical community. An individual practice may be limited by its own patient population; however, joining a platform like CVL provides access to an expanded patient pool.

CVL recognizes the value of joining forces by creating larger patient populations across all of our practices for a more effective trial experience. Through strength in numbers, our platform can make an even bigger impact on the future of cardiovascular care and transform how it’s delivered across the country.

Broadening Service Offerings

Delivering better patient care requires keeping pace with the challenges of your specific patient population and adding services that meet their health needs. A cardiovascular platform can transform an innovative idea into reality, quickly and efficiently, by leveraging the success of others who’ve already implemented the concept.

When one CVL practice wanted to reduce unnecessary emergency room visits yet still provide patients with same-day access to care, they didn’t recreate the wheel. By working closely with another CVL practice that was running a successful Cardiac Access Clinic, they were able to get their site up and running fast and with confidence.

The same process enabled one of our practices to rapidly implement a new Vein and Leg Center, offering a wide range of nonsurgical methods for treating venous disease.

Joining a platform like CVL enables cardiologists to practice at the top of their license and improve patient care, while reducing inefficiencies and tedious tasks. Our industry-leading platform brings the expertise, capabilities, and resources to scale a cardiology practice, meet value-based care expectations, and deliver the best patient care. And our PECs offer a structured process for sharing best practices and building out world-class practice management techniques.

Contact CVL to learn how our cardiovascular platform can help you implement cardiology practice enhancement strategies that benefit your patients and your organization.