Sphere realizes increased efficiency and effectiveness of commercial organization with Definitive Healthcare

Creating a smoother and more secure payment experience in healthcare

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), out-of-pocket spending grew 4.6% to $406.5 billion in 2019. For healthcare organizations to keep up with this substantial volume and growth, they require efficient and secure payment processing. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has produced a significant shift in how healthcare organizations operate, and many are turning to innovative technologies to streamline their payment processing to maximize their revenue.

Sphere is a cloud-based, vertically integrated software and payments technology company that facilitates and drives secure payments. Seamlessly integrating into their clients’ workflows, billing systems and electronic health records, their suite of secure and compliant solutions helps healthcare organizations increase their payment collections. Their TrustCommerce solution, which is the leading healthcare gateway and merchant processing provider, integrates with electronic health records (EHRs)at large health systems, acute care facilities, physician groups, specialty practices and telehealth providers. Their Health iPASS platform is a patient engagement solution that streamlines the patient check-in and billing processes and drives patient payment yield. By tailoring these offerings to each of their clients’ needs, Sphere revolutionizes software integration for smoother and more secure payment experiences across the healthcare continuum.

The challenge

A need to improve efficiency and reduce the number of steps in the sales cycle

Trusted by more than a third of the largest health systems in the United States and thousands of independent medical providers across the country, Sphere built a powerful and reputable platform to transfer secure payments and integrate seamlessly into healthcare organizations’ workflows. Because their tailored offerings are based on the client’s EHR or practice management system, understanding each provider’s technology usage, network integration and other intelligence at the onset was essential to qualifying the lead and determining the right path forward. However, with no single source to gather this information, the Solutions Consultants at Sphere relied on additional research, qualification steps and discovery conversations. These extra steps in the sales cycle proved to be quite time-consuming and resource-intensive.

Sphere identified a need for robust healthcare commercial intelligence that would enable them to identify and engage high-quality touch points and contacts. Specifically, by knowing whether the client was using Epic, Allscripts or other EHRs, Sphere could better target their offering and create messaging that resonated with various segments of healthcare providers.

The solution

A single source for healthcare commercial intelligence

As Sphere evaluated data vendors, they chose Definitive Healthcare because of its comprehensive technology intelligence, current and regularly updated data, and the ability to receive notifications when healthcare providers made technology changes. Leveraging HospitalView and PhysicianGroupView in an integrated self-service platform, the commercial team gained a holistic understanding of healthcare providers with data such as financial performance, technology implementations, affiliations, network size and executive contact information. They used the data to understand their markets and identify the right organizations and individuals to partner with. Specifically, Sphere used Definitive Healthcare to:

1. Identify qualified leads: To power their go-to-market strategy, technology data such as purchasing opportunities helped the team to identify healthcare organizations making EHR purchasing decisions. This has enabled the commercial teams to uncover new leads as well as have more timely engagements with prospects.

2. Tailor messaging: Because the commercial team tailored Sphere’s offerings to a health system’s technology usage, Definitive Healthcare’s technology data like EHR implementations provided the team with more tailored conversations specific to each of their clients’ needs.

3. Maximize customer success: Sphere leveraged Definitive Healthcare data to optimize their account management. Using metrics like financial performance helped the team to identify areas where the client could maximize their investment in Sphere’s solutions. By leveraging Definitive Healthcare, the Sphere team spent less time piecing together the healthcare landscape and needs of each organization, which allowed them to focus their time on making meaningful connections and providing valuable results to their clients.

The impact

Key results: 15% increase in high-value opportunities, greater efficiency and a shorter sales cycle

The Solutions Consultants at Sphere immediately experienced value using data and deriving insights from Definitive Healthcare that drove measurable results. One significant impact for the company was efficiency. Before Definitive Healthcare, the team spent considerable time researching and qualifying healthcare providers and conducting additional discovery calls. Definitive Healthcare’s solutions brought this healthcare commercial intelligence together in one place, and that allowed the team to spend less time piecing together the healthcare landscape and needs of each organization and instead focus their time on understanding the dynamics of different organizations, making meaningful connections and providing valuable results to their clients and prospects.

Additionally, Definitive Healthcare has helped Sphere to be extremely targeted while growing their qualified lead volume. For example, they recently saw a 15% increase in high-value opportunities using Definitive Healthcare data. With these highly qualified opportunities, the team was able to create more targeted messaging, timelier outreach to prospects and increased speed to connect with the right stakeholders at provider organizations—all of which reduced the number of steps in the sales cycle. Ultimately, using Definitive Healthcare has allowed the Sphere team to be more efficient and targeted in their approach, enabling them to focus on their mission to help healthcare providers maximize their revenue with revolutionary software integration and secure payment processing experiences.