Benchmarking only helps if you compare the right things and act on the gaps. Comparing yourself to “industry average” without context can be misleading. Here’s what’s worth tracking and where to get numbers.
Metrics that matter
Operational: time from referral to SOC, visits per clinician per week, intake conversion rate (referral to SOC). Financial: cost per visit by discipline and payor, revenue per episode, denial rate, days to RAP and days to final. Quality: star rating, outcome measures, hospitalization rate. Pick a short list you can actually pull from your EHR and billing system. If you can’t measure it this month, don’t benchmark it yet.
Where the numbers come from
CMS publishes star ratings and some outcome data by agency. NAHC and other groups sometimes publish survey-based benchmarks (cost per visit, staffing ratios). Your state association may have state-level data. For internal benchmarks, use your own history: compare this quarter to last, or this branch to that one. External benchmarks tell you how you stack up; internal trends tell you if you’re improving.
How to act on it
If you’re below benchmark on time-to-SOC, the fix is intake and auth, not more marketing. If your cost per visit is high, break it down by discipline and payor,often one segment is dragging the average. If denial rate is high, pull a sample of denials and code the reason; then fix the top two or three causes. Our guide on denial management and appeals covers root causes and prevention. We have a benchmark worksheet you can download: a short list of metrics, how to calculate them, and a space to write your target and next action.