> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.valiancehealth.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# First Steps

> How to choose between Healthproximate's five workflows and a typical user journey.

Once you're set up, the main question is *which workflow answers your question*. This
page is a quick decision guide.

## The common starting point

Almost every task begins the same way: **search for the procedure, condition, or DRG
you care about**. The [Entity Resolver](../workflows/entity-resolver) turns that
free-text term into the standardized ID the other workflows need. You rarely have
those IDs up front, so resolving first is the prerequisite step.

## Choosing a workflow

| Your question                                                         | Use                                     |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| "What does a typical case for this procedure look like?"              | [Dashboard](../workflows/dashboard)     |
| "How have revenue, cost, margin, or outcomes trended over a period?"  | [Analytics](../workflows/analytics)     |
| "What is a *future/hypothetical* case likely to cost, earn, or take?" | [Predictions](../workflows/predictions) |
| "How would a price or discount change affect revenue?"                | [Simulation](../workflows/simulation)   |

<Tip>
  **Dashboard vs. Analytics:** the Dashboard answers "what is the shape of this one
  item right now?" with a quick distribution. Analytics answers "how does a metric
  behave across a date range, broken down by surgeon, payor, provider, or client?"
</Tip>

## A typical user journey

<Steps>
  <Step title="Resolve">
    Search for and select your procedure / condition / DRG.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Understand the shape">
    Open the [Dashboard](../workflows/dashboard) to see the high-level distribution.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Dig into the numbers">
    Use [Analytics](../workflows/analytics) to break a metric down over time and by
    dimension.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Look forward">
    Use [Predictions](../workflows/predictions) to estimate a metric for a hypothetical
    case profile.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Test a change">
    Use [Simulation](../workflows/simulation) to model the revenue impact of a pricing
    or discount change.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Tips for interpreting outputs

* **Mind the metric vocabulary.** The same idea can be named differently in different
  workflows — for example, billed revenue is called `revenue` in Analytics and the
  Dashboard, but `price` in Predictions. Each workflow page lists its exact metrics.
* **Hospital-only metrics** (hospital revenue, profit, margin) exclude certain bill
  types and professional fees and do not apply to insurance/payor organizations.
* **Predictions are estimates**, presented with confidence and prediction-interval
  context — read them as ranges, not single guaranteed numbers.
* **Everything is scoped to your organization.** You are never seeing another
  organization's data.

<Card title="Browse the workflows" icon="grip" href="../workflows/entity-resolver">
  Start with the Entity Resolver, the prerequisite for the rest.
</Card>