3 Strategies For Small Hospitals To Maximize Reimbursement
Reimbursements at small hospitals are notoriously low, but effective strategies exist to make the best of any dire financial situation.
Challenges To Managing Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle
Increases in regulation, transparency of medical care, and shrinking reimbursement rates have led hospitals to search for new ways to maximize revenue. Healthcare revenue cycle management has become even more critical to improving the bottom line. Healthcare leaders are embracing innovative healthcare practices to reach financial goals.
What is the healthcare revenue cycle?
The healthcare revenue cycle includes all administrative and clinical functions that contribute to managing and collecting patient service revenue. In basics terms, the healthcare revenue cycle is the entire course of a patient account from creation to payment.
How healthy is your revenue cycle?
A robust healthcare revenue cycle and maximizing funds should follow billing and collection best practices to ensure bills are submitted in a timely manner. The most important aspect of a healthy healthcare revenue cycle is ensuring every service is billed and paid.
Healthcare revenue cycle hiccups
Many different interruptions can occur in a healthcare revenue cycle. The most common hiccups include:
- No referrals
- Coding, registration, or billing errors
- Unverified insurance
- Underpaid claims
- Denied appeals
What are your solutions?
The solutions to managing revenue begin with a focus on strengthening healthcare revenue cycle management through new strategies. Providers need to change and update office processes and train staff to be more efficient and revenue-focused.
Patient-centered services are a must
Strong patient relationships can ensure a patient is more likely to reimburse the provider. Many patients view medical billing as complicated and deceptive. Staff should take time to explain financial responsibilities, payment options, and what to expect from the visit.
Investing in technology can save you time and money
Updated technology allows providers to collect patient information and submit claims more efficiently than ever before. High-quality software and patient portals can track claims, payments, and patient information. Investing in technology can lead to real savings of time and money.
Automation will avoid human error
One of the single most advantageous solutions to managing the healthcare revenue cycle is automation. Automating prior authorizations and eligibility can speed the revenue cycle, reduce costly human errors from staff, and increase efficiency. In savings alone, automated prior authorizations cost almost 4 times less than prior manual authorizations.
Collect patient information upfront
Gathering accurate information from patients is vital to get paid. New technologies such as pre-registration software ensure that a patient’s in-office visit is quick, and all information is gathered ahead of time. Pre-registration also allows providers to determine insurance coverage, costs, and prepare staff before the first visit.
Embrace solutions to increase revenue
Every station of the healthcare revenue cycle has room for improvement. The key to addressing these challenges is to work with staff on the front end to ensure all patient information captured is accurate and embrace new technologies that may make processing patient information easier.