The vision test we did
Jim has been an advocate for improving the quality of healthcare for more than 20 years. He is a great leader and has a lot of different skills, including clinical, operational, financial, and leadership. His goal is to make healthcare better by negotiating contracts, adjusting risks, and addressing social determinants of health.
When it comes to value-based care, why is risk adjustment so important? Jim Schafer: In general, Medicare risk adjustment forecasting (RAF) depends on clinicians giving a clear clinical picture of each patient. RAF is based on Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs), which use ICD-10 codes to give patients risk scores. Each HCC is mapped to an ICD-10 code. With the help of demographic information like age and gender, insurance companies use HCC coding to give each patient a risk adjustment factor (RAF) score. ICD-10 is the International Classification of Diseases and we are in the 10th revision. It is used everywhere in the US for healthcare and is a list of medical terms made by the World Health Organization (WHO).
How do you figure out RAF scores? Jim Schafer: Risk adjustment has been around since 1997. It was slowly adopted between 2007 and 2008, but the Affordable Care Act and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 really set it in motion. Risk adjustment is calculated by assigning a numerical value to a certain set of diagnoses. There are more than 10,000 diagnoses that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services puts out there. Each diagnosis has a numerical value attached to it. You have a base demographic RAF that is based on your age, gender, and where you live in the country. This will set your base risk adjustment.
Say you are a 78-year-old woman from Georgia or a 65-year-old man from Arizona. You will each have a demographic RAF. This forecasts the cost of care based on your demographics. There is also a disability RAF, and if you are disabled and on both Medicaid and Medicare, you will get extra money.
Another option is the Hierarchical Condition Category, which is a risk adjustment model used to figure out risk scores and guess how much healthcare will cost in the future. There is one other risk adjustment factor and it’s known as disease interaction RAF. If you have both diabetes and congestive heart failure, you have an interaction RAF, which means that the two conditions add up.
It is not like one plus one equals two. If you have both congestive heart failure and diabetes, you will have an interaction RAF on top of the RAF forecasting for both conditions. That helps predict the total cost of your care for the next year.
Landing a job at Hill-Rom a leading global medical technology company is no easy feat. With its innovative healthcare solutions and 10,000+ employees worldwide, Hill-Rom attracts top talent across industries.
As a prospective candidate, you can expect a rigorous recruiting process, including multiple interviews evaluating both your technical and soft skills Coming prepared with strong, well-thought-out responses to common Hill-Rom interview questions is key to standing out from the competition.
This comprehensive guide outlines the top 15 questions candidates face during Hill-Rom interviews from behavioral and situational questions to technical queries and industry-related scenarios. Read on to learn more about nailing the Hill-Rom interview process and setting yourself up for success.
Overview of the Hill-Rom Interview Process
The typical Hill-Rom interview process consists of three main stages:
1. Initial Screening Call: A preliminary call with a recruiter reviewing your resume and experiences. This helps determine basic fit for the role.
2. Formal Interview: One or more in-depth interviews, often including both behavioral/situational questions and technical assessments. May involve phone/video interviews or in-person meetings.
3. Follow-Up Discussions: Conversations with additional team members, such as potential direct managers or cross-functional partners. Allows for a 360-degree evaluation.
Candidates can also expect other evaluations like skills/tech assessments, Gallup StrengthsFinder tests, and site visits to Hill-Rom facilities. The key is showcasing alignment with the company’s core values of integrity, empathy, accountability, and excellence throughout the process.
Now let’s dive into the top 15 interview questions candidates can expect during the Hill-Rom recruiting process.
1. Walk me through your experience servicing and troubleshooting medical equipment, specifically patient support systems.
With Hill-Rom’s focus on hospital beds, therapeutic surfaces, and other patient support systems, this question evaluates your hands-on expertise. Interviewers want to know you have the technical chops to maintain and repair these mission-critical devices safely and effectively.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Highlight specific models/types of equipment you have experience with.
- Provide an example demonstrating your ability to diagnose and quickly resolve equipment issues.
- Emphasize patient safety and comfort as top priorities.
- Discuss any training or certifications relevant to the role.
2. How would you go about developing strong, long-lasting relationships with clients to drive business growth?
Here, interviewers want to assess your customer focus and your ability to cultivate loyalty. Showcasing both empathy and strategic thinking is key.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Discuss strategies like conducting in-depth research on each client prior to meetings.
- Share examples of how you’ve created tailored solutions to solve client pain points.
- Highlight how you proactively communicate with clients and address concerns.
- Emphasize customer lifetime value over one-time sales.
3. Walk me through your experience managing projects involving healthcare technology implementations.
For this question, interviewers evaluate your understanding of the healthcare technology landscape and associated complexities. They want to see that you can handle cross-functional collaboration, strict regulations, and user training required for successful deployments.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share projects where you oversaw healthcare tech implementations from planning through execution.
- Discuss how you ensured seamless integrations with existing systems.
- Highlight how you managed continuity of patient care during transitions.
- Emphasize stellar communication skills in working with diverse stakeholders.
4. Tell me about a time you worked closely with a customer to resolve a complex issue involving one of our products.
Here, interviewers look for evidence of your problem-solving abilities and your dedication to customer satisfaction. They want to know you can maintain composure and resolve problems effectively even when tensions run high.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share a specific example demonstrating patience, persistence and ownership of the issue.
- Highlight how you proactively communicated throughout the resolution process.
- Discuss how you followed up to ensure no recurrence of the problem.
- Note what you learned and applied to future customer engagements.
5. How have you successfully managed multiple client accounts while maintaining high satisfaction levels?
This question tests your ability to juggle competing priorities. Interviewers want to see stellar organizational skills and a customer-centric approach even during challenging workloads.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share how you use productivity tools to stay organized across accounts.
- Discuss how you set clear expectations and deadlines for each client.
- Give examples of how you identified and addressed potential bottlenecks or issues proactively.
- Note any positive feedback or metrics demonstrating client satisfaction.
6. Please explain your engineering background as it relates to designing and improving medical devices.
For technical roles like product design and R&D, interviewers want to gauge how well your engineering skills and experiences align with Hill-Rom’s focus. They are looking for creative problem-solving abilities and a passion for innovation.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share medical device projects you’ve worked on and your specific contributions.
- Discuss how your skills in areas like prototyping, testing, and risk analysis apply.
- Highlight your understanding of healthcare industry regulations.
- Note any relevant quality or process improvement initiatives you’ve undertaken.
7. How would you assess and optimize asset utilization within the operations of a healthcare facility?
Here, interviewers want to understand your approach to maximizing current resources and improving efficiency – a key priority for healthcare providers seeking to control costs. Showcase your analytical abilities and business acumen.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Discuss auditing processes to establish asset utilization baselines.
- Share how you’d identify underutilized resources and areas for improvement.
- Give examples of strategies to optimize assets like consolidating technology systems or redeploying unused equipment.
- Highlight the ability to translate data insights into impactful business decisions.
8. What strategies have you utilized to improve service team efficiency and productivity?
For customer-facing and operations roles, interviewers look for leadership abilities in driving team performance. They want to see you can set clear expectations, motivate staff, and implement best practices for excellence.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share specific tactics like establishing SLAs, implementing incentives, or conducting training to upskill staff.
- Discuss adopting tools like CRM systems to streamline processes.
- Provide examples of how your strategies directly improved metrics like first-call resolution rates.
- Highlight your openness to employee feedback on enhancing processes.
9. Walk me through how you’ve leveraged financial data to inform budgeting and forecasting decisions in a previous role.
By asking this question, interviewers can evaluate your business acumen, analytical abilities, and strategic decision-making skills. They want to see you can translate complex data into meaningful business insights.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share a specific business decision example supported by financial data analysis.
- Discuss your expertise with data modeling, forecasting, cost-benefit analysis, etc.
- Explain how the insights you uncovered translated into improved budget allocation or projections.
- Highlight your ability to communicate data findings clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
10. Describe your experience with software development projects related to healthcare systems integration.
For IT and engineering roles, interviewers are looking for proven experience handling the unique challenges of healthcare technology integrations. This includes managing strict regulations, clinical workflows, and patient data sensitivity.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share specific projects, your role, and outcomes achieved.
- Discuss healthcare standards like HL7 FHIR you have worked with.
- Highlight specialized skills like ensuring data integrity during migrations or designing intuitive clinician interfaces.
- Emphasize stellar communication with both technical teams and healthcare stakeholders.
11. How do you stay up-to-date on industry trends and innovations to deliver cutting-edge solutions to customers?
Here, interviewers want to assess your learning agility and passion for continuous skills development. They are looking for resourcefulness, creativity, and strategic thinking.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share proactive learning strategies like attending conferences, reading industry publications, or networking with peers.
- Discuss how you turn emerging trends into potential product or service offerings.
- Provide examples of innovative solutions you proposed based on new developments.
- Highlight your ability to discern meaningful vs. fleeting trends.
12. Tell me about a time you negotiated win-win contracts or pricing with a client.
For sales and account management roles, interviewers evaluate your ability to steer complex negotiations. They want to see stellar communication skills, strategic win-win thinking, and the ability to align outcomes with company goals.
Tips for a strong answer:
- Share a specific example of a negotiation situation and process.
- Discuss how you incorporated financial and usage data into a compelling business case.
Question 3: How can an organization improve its RAF scores?
Jim Schafer: Well, it is not so much about improving RAF. It is about accurately capturing or recapturing disease conditions. This allows for better data and person-centered targeted interventions for patients with chronic disease conditions. Every year, your risk adjustment forecast resets to zero. Let’s say you have a RAF score of 2. 9 on a patient on December 31st. In January, it resets to zero or your demographic RAF. You will need to identify and capture those diagnoses and any new diagnoses each year.
They say that if you have a leg cut off on December 31, it grows back on January 1 until you re-document and diagnose a below-the-knee or above-the-knee amputation. You want to recapture it so you can allocate dollars and resources for the following year.
What are the different ways that RAF affects ACO (Accountable Care Organizations), Medicare Advantage, and Commercial risk contracts? Jim Schafer: This helps get money to the right places. When things were done the old way, you would give each patient a set amount of money. To get a correct dollar value and RAF, you can set aside the money and resources needed to care for the patient under that plan, whether it’s a managed care plan, an ACO, or a commercial contract. You can distribute the proper amount of dollars for the patient to manage your care throughout the year.
A 65-year-old man who is healthy and doesn’t have any other health problems will cost less to care for than a diabetic with a high BMI or someone who has been diagnosed with cancer. You are going to need more dollars and resources allocated to take care of that patient.
Question 5: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected risk models and the relevance of value-based care? Jim Schafer: There was a big push at the beginning of the year to risk adjust or accurately re-diagnose and recapture. If you do it early in the year, you can manage those disease conditions throughout the year. I want to be very clear; you cannot just diagnose something. You want to support the integrity of the diagnosis by using the MEAT model to monitor, evaluate, assess and treat.
If MEAT is not linked to an HCC diagnosis, then it will not be a valuable diagnosis. In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, January 2020 was moving along really well. Providers were capturing and recapturing and finding risks in their patients early in the year.
When COVID-19 hit around March 2020, there was a significant decrease in risk adjustment.
Then you had telemetry, where people had to rapidly shift and adjust to telehealth visits. When you did that, there were a lot of rules. That was the last time there were many rules about whether or not you could record an HCC or risk adjustment code during a telehealth visit. Medicare did not allow it early on.
Telehealth visits typically were not reimbursed and if they were, they were reimbursed around 12 to 24 dollars. In rural areas, you were paid more in some places because that was part of your federal program. You could get paid a lot more.
In an average urban environment, you were paid 11 to 12 dollars at best for a telehealth visit. The only organizations that took advantage of it were value-based programs. Interacting with a patient on a regular basis who may have more than one chronic disease was especially helpful. The eleven dollars doesn’t add much value, but if the patient had gone to the emergency room with several long-term illnesses, you would have a twenty-thousand-dollar case. It’s easy to see that if you work with that patient, you can lower the sum of all medical losses.
Medicare started to pay for telehealth visits on a fee-for-service basis, so people jumped on the bandwagon and started to use them to connect with their patients. However, many were very episodic in nature. It was not an opportunity to recapture or identify multiple disease conditions.
A wellness visit once a year used to be important because it helped doctors get to know their patients before something bad happened. When your COPD or CHF gets worse, or when your diabetes gets out of hand because you gain weight or your feet swell, those one-time visits are all about that problem. But your annual wellness visit allows time for you to talk to your provider. In value-based care and risk adjustment, it is very important for patients to be able to talk to their doctors and get to know them.
People like going to the doctor for an annual wellness visit because they can talk and interact with the doctor. At that time, doctors can also remember all of their patients’ medications, write them down, and add the information to their electronic health records (EHR). It gives the doctor a better idea of what’s really wrong with the patient and keeps track of outside information like hospital visits and outpatient services.
Question 6: If diabetic retinopathy is not a quality measure that is part of a provider’s value-based care contract with payors/ACOs, is there a benefit to still do the exam and improve the quality metric? Jim Schafer: Absolutely, if you are examining for diabetic retinopathy early on, there is a definite benefit. Whether or not you are getting value from a quality measure threshold, you are doing a preventive screening, similar to a mammogram.
How has the RetinaVue care delivery model met your expectations? Question 7: Why did you invest in it? Jim Schafer: I was looking at where we needed to make the most progress and I saw that no one was even close to getting three to five stars on the diabetic retinal exam.
I suggested that we begin with one HEDIS® (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) metric. What is the most important thing we can do? I had just learned about the RetinaVue® care delivery model and chose to focus on the diabetic retinal exam and diagnosing diabetic retinopathy. We were the fifth or sixth practice in Arizona to get a RetinaVue r.
We trained our staff and they were so excited to use something new. What we really needed to do was set up a process. Our medical director and I worked together to make the diabetic retinal exam a regular thing. Now, people with diabetes who are a certain age need a RetinaVue diabetic retinal exam. In this case, a standing order was made, which gave the exam to the medical assistants instead of the providers. A person with diabetes gets their eyes checked when they go in for their annual wellness visit. Their height, weight, and blood pressure are all measured.
I wanted the information to be in our system so that we could share it with the plan or hospital and figure out what was wrong with the patient and how bad their diabetic retinopathy was. While it didn’t happen right away, it did take some time. The medical assistants liked it when we first started getting the reports back.
Anyone who doesn’t need to see a specialist can get this exam at their yearly checkup and save $50. This is especially helpful for people who are on a fixed income. They will appreciate it. Also, if they have other social factors that affect their health, it can be hard for them to make another trip to see a specialist.
Here is where I knew we made a difference. We had gone from two stars to five stars within a year. It was the greatest feeling getting a call from the payers asking how we did it. Moving the needle and looking at it on a large scale was what made it valuable. It also helped diabetes patients get better care. I knew we made a difference when the plans started calling us. We were very proud that our patients had given us five stars, making us the only hospital in the country to do so. Our staff could wear that badge with pride.
TOP 5 HARDEST INTERVIEW QUESTIONS & Top-Scoring ANSWERS!
FAQ
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