As the medical industry is slowly shifting from a service based care to value-based care, hospitals and healthcare operations management consultancies are challenged with improving patient care while reducing costs. As a result, they are finding it difficult to maintain a steady stream of income. The decline in cash flows and margins are another reason to significantly improve and maintain a healthy Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). Effectively managing it can make the healthcare practice more responsive and efficient in terms of growth and operational changes.
A robust hospital revenue cycle is significant in order to allow healthcare systems to thrive. RCM healthcare solutions are capable of boosting performance by integrating every single step of the care cycle; starting with the very first patient touch point to the ending of the payment for medical services. However, there is a dramatic change in the way patients choose their providers and pay their bills. Hospitals can tackle the financial impact caused by a modification in the delivery system by upgrading their RCM capabilities.
Let’s take a look at specific ways to manage and enhance your revenue cycle:
- Review the data and understand the results to discover the trends that didn’t work well and find out their cause. For a full picture of the healthcare revenue management, consider both hospital as well as the physician billing data.
- Benchmark your healthcare data to identify areas in hospital revenue cycle where you need to improve. It is ideal to combine data from disparate IT systems and optimize it for analysis.
- Compare your RCM healthcare services with other healthcare systems, especially against industry standard revenue cycle excellence. Outline the differences in terms of technology, process and other metrics that are key performance indicators on the revenue cycle.
- An enterprise data warehouse can be used to mine healthcare data. This powerful solution can help discover the roadblocks, automate manual work and implement a positive change in RCM healthcare services.
- Work in partnership with membership societies, professional organizations and frontline staff as you can gain lot of insights. Ask for guidance in best practices for healthcare revenue management as well as healthcare operations management such as collection practices and medical billing.
- Since margins are getting tighter, it is important to monitor all contracts and communicate clearly with payers. Contact them frequently and dismiss payers who are denying claims, or putting unreasonable demands.
- It is also important to maintain convenient touch points with patients to enhance care. One example is having a well-designed patient portal. This gives patients the opportunity to pay bills online, thereby increasing their satisfaction levels
- Consider back end revenue cycle management activities as against a dynamic upfront patient experience. This can positively impact patient satisfaction.
- Use key stakeholders and clinical representatives as part of the revenue cycle management committee to make the right decisions that are data driven.
- Consulting with healthcare revenue management vendors for successful tips, advice and expertise in this domain can help gain real-time knowledge.
- Designing and implementing a hospital revenue cycle scorecard that regularly tracks performance can generate actionable insights.
- Apart from monitoring performance, integrating advanced analytics and big data can show the direction of trending factors in RCM healthcare services.
Create a full revenue cycle strategy that can elevate and transform your financial health. Use the front-end revenue cycle to leverage the patient access department as you can leverage the patient payments journey. Improve the accuracy of your RCM healthcare services by integrating clinical and financial systems in the middle-revenue cycle. Drive sustainable growth and increase overall revenue using the back-end revenue cycle by refining the medical billing, healthcare operations management and other systems.
Use these steps to transform your hospital revenue cycle system into a sustainable and a high-performing financial engine to increase results and accountability.
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