Overview

There are many places in Strategy where, at a glance, it seems that the metrics in some columns should add up to the metric in another column, but they don't. In this article, we will provide some examples where you might see this, with an explanation why the metrics don't add up in what seems the most obvious way.

One perspective to keep in mind is that, for the most part, each column is calculated on its own. We don't add up columns or rows to get other metrics. (There are exceptions, which will always be indicated in the Help Center documentation.)

Example: Imagine that you are a teacher and you counted how many students attended your class each day, Monday through Friday. You would not add those counts together to figure out how many of your students attended at least one day for that week. If you did, you would be counting some students multiple times. (To get all mathy, for the week count you would calculate a union of all the individuals days, counting each student once.)

And, as a corollary, you might want to keep in mind that each page and table tells its own story, looking at the same data from a different angle. From two locations in Strategy, what appears to be the "same" metric might be different because it is a different perspective. The best solution is to compare the definitions for the two metrics to see the difference.

Why don't counts for four quarters add up to the Annual count?

Throughout Strategy we provide quarterly and annual patient counts in the same table.

The image below is from the Analyze page for a physician. You can also add quarterly and annual patient counts to the table for a provider on the Explore page to create the same scenario.

Click on the image to expand it. 

If we were to add up the four quarters, it would look like this:

However, the table shows 997.

The reason we can't add together patient counts from the quarters to get an annual count is that each column is a count of distinct patients. There will be some patients who will be counted in multiple quarters, but only once in the annual count. 

Why don't the three claim types add up to the total?

Claim types work in a similar way. A Claim "type" for a patient count in Strategy is a count of a claim event for a physician/patient pair where the claim was submitted that fit the following criteria:

• Last Claimed - where the selected physician submitted the last claim for the patient prior to their admission to post-acute care - SNF, HH, or HOS.
• Attended (would be "Followed" for HHA related claims) - A count of patients where the selected physician was listed as the attending physician (for SNF or HOS) or the following physician for HH.
• 3 Months Prior - the physician submitted a claim for the patient within three months of admission to post-acute care.

We added the columns included in the image below to the Explore page table.

If we add the counts for the different claim types together, the "total" is 271. The table shows 223 patients for the selected physician. What this means is that some of the "Last Claimed" patients were also treated during the "3 Months Prior" period, and patients for both of those were included in the count for "Attended."

Another way to look at this is that a specific physician/patient claim event, might be counted in more than one category, but only once in the "All" patients column.

Or, to be all mathy, the All column is a union of the other three columns.

Can I add up columns to get a total?

For this example, we are viewing a physician's Analyze page, under the Destinations tab - the specific table is Home Health Destinations, although this example works in the same way for any other table under Destinations.

In the image below, we have highlighted the Home Health patient count for each home health agency listed. Can we add these together to get a total number of patients for all listed home health agencies?

The answer is no. The reason this doesn't work is that each row counts all patients admitted during the reporting period. If a patient is admitted to more than one home health agency during the reporting period, that patient would be counted in each row to reflect the accurate number of patients treated for each agency.

If you add the rows together to get a total, you will be counting some patients more than once.

In sum, you need to think carefully about the relationship between each row and column of each table and determine how each metric is calculated. 

Are there exceptions? Certainly. Columns that count discharges or admission can be added up. An admission to one agency, or even multiple admissions to the same agency will be cumulative. Counts of Mortalities can also be added since a patient can only be counted once for this category.