TL;DR
If your primary-care practice receives health-plan assignments, keep assignment, internal practice attribution, engagement and marketing-source evidence separate. An assigned name is not proof of an inquiry, attendance or agency-generated acquisition. Ask the practice to reconcile those categories before accepting a growth report.
Check what the assignment actually establishes
PHMI's empanelment guide distinguishes health-plan assignment from provider-level attribution and identifies assigned members who have not yet engaged with the practice. That is the operational reason this report needs an assignment category before any marketing claim. PHMI implementation guide.
The guide comes from a California community-health-center initiative. This article uses its assignment and engagement distinctions where the practice actually receives assignments. It does not transfer California payment rules or prescribe billing, capitation, clinical panel attribution or revenue recognition. A practice without this assignment pathway should use a different reporting definition.
Ask the reporting owner what the agency's growth total contains. An updated payer file, a change in the assigned clinician and a newly attended encounter may appear in different systems. They should not acquire the same meaning because a dashboard calls each a new patient.
Build an assignment-to-engagement reconciliation
Use this original specification inside approved practice systems. The practice should resolve individual histories and approve the actual summary for its intended recipient. The agency does not need member lists to agree the definitions.
| Dimension | Evidence owned by the practice | What it does not establish alone |
|---|---|---|
| Payer assignment | Source, effective state and assignment-history coverage | Person contacted, attended or acquired by marketing |
| Practice attribution | Actual care team assigned under practice policy | The payer record agrees or the person engaged |
| Prior relationship | Historical inquiry and attended-care evidence under the declared boundary | Missing history means a person is new |
| Internal panel transfer | Existing relationship and documented team change | Another acquisition for the practice |
| Inquiry and source | Actual request, original date and supported source evidence | Assignment caused the request or marketing caused attendance |
| Verified encounter | Practice-confirmed completed event under its definition | A new-to-practice relationship or exclusive agency credit |
| Unresolved history | Missing, conflicting or unavailable evidence | Permission to assign the record to the preferred growth category |
| Report inclusion | Declared event, relationship rule and source standard | A clinical or financial classification |
Keep assignment state and history coverage at the agreed reporting anchor. Preserve subsequent engagement as a separate event. Record payer corrections and internal transfers without silently rewriting the original marketing cohort.
Test the categories that can inflate a report
Ask the analyst to demonstrate the rules with synthetic records outside live outreach. Include an assigned member with no verified encounter; an assigned person with an existing practice relationship; an established patient changing care teams; and a person whose prior history is unresolved. Also test an assigned member who later inquires through an observed campaign route.
The later campaign interaction can remain visible without proving that the campaign created the assignment or caused the relationship. If the first verified encounter qualifies under the practice's declared new-relationship rule, report that event with its actual source limits. Do not automatically award marketing credit because the person became engaged.
Add a correction record: disputed label ___; assignment evidence ___; prior-history limit ___; qualifying event ___; source evidence ___; permitted inclusion ___; correction owner ___. This is the missing purchasing test when an agency report mixes externally assigned population changes with internally verified engagement.
Separate assignment movement from acquisition results
Return distinct report sections for assignment changes, practice attribution changes, verified relationship events and supported marketing interactions. State the reporting period and outcome cutoff. If an inquiry remains pending, keep it pending rather than borrowing an encounter from an incompatible period to complete the report.
Use the general event dictionary for website activity and appointment states. The reporting guide supplies method disclosure. Neither an analytics label nor an assignment file supplies the missing relationship or causal evidence.
GetPatients has a commercial interest in healthcare visibility services. Evaluate its claims under the same rules. If the available report verifies only assignment movement, accept a report of that movement and request the missing evidence before treating it as acquisition performance.
Frequently asked questions
Is an assigned member automatically an existing patient?
Do not infer engagement from assignment. Have authorized practice staff apply the practice's actual relationship rule and retain assignment separately.
Can an internal clinician transfer count as growth?
It can describe a panel change. Preserve the prior practice relationship when evaluating new-to-practice acquisition; name a different reporting boundary explicitly if needed.
Should the agency receive the payer file to fix the report?
Agree definitions using synthetic records and practice-approved summaries. Any proposed access requires its own actual purpose and practice assessment; it is not a prerequisite imposed by this worksheet.