5 Best Ways to Optimize Healthcare RCM

Revenue cycle management remains elusive in the new healthcare landscape, as new regulations and reforms have caused the industry to evolve, leaving many hospitals scrambling to maintain revenue in a value-based care reimbursement model.

Today, technology platforms can help providers, payers, and consumers communicate and interact more efficiently, resulting in a more long-lasting revenue cycle management strategy.

It is critical to keep patients up to date on medical billing

One critical step is to train staff on patient education early in the treatment or medical care process. This ensures that patients are not taken aback when they receive a medical bill following discharge or a medical appointment.

First and foremost, financial clearing patients early and consistently is probably the most important consideration. This specifically means that it is attempting to manage bad debt avoidance.

A lot of what we see at the start or along the way is bad debt avoidance. Training staff to collaborate with patients and educate them early on, it eliminates surprises when the bills arrive, easing the payment component.

Patient consumerism trends are raising the bar for cost transparency in the healthcare industry. In a departure from the past, consumers are now requiring hospitals and clinics to provide accurate cost information before agreeing to medical services.

This includes estimating costs and providing all possible avenues for sponsorship for those who qualify.

It is becoming increasingly important as consumerism expands. It’s more than just signing up. It is more than just a point of sale. It’s all about bad debt avoidance and financially clearing patients once more. That is one component.

Financially clearing patients is becoming an important component of revenue cycle management because it assists hospitals and clinics in avoiding debt collection. Transparency about costs is also an important aspect of improving patient communication.

Visibility is critical in terms of visibility. You can never communicate too much. Many customers anticipate that visibility. They are shopping around, managing their high-deductible plans, and budgeting for out-of-pocket expenses. It’s critical at the point of scheduling and communication to leverage internal staff, which allows us to focus on health accounts that are more likely to be collected.

Increased staff investment and Internet-based medical billing

It is critical to invest in personnel. Providing all of the improvements along the way, in essence, begins at the ground level. You must keep a close eye on your team. You must understand the processes and provide them with the appropriate guidance, whether that is continuing education on patient-payer communications, data entry, payer rules, or workflow tools that help to flag any process issues.

It is critical to keep the staff educated. “There is simply not enough education.

There is ultimately increased productivity, and it helps to reward high performers.

Allowing patients more options, such as online patient payment options, will result in stronger revenue cycle management because it will allow consumers to pay their bills much more conveniently and quickly.

Another factor is the availability of online payment options. When you consider the patient or the consumer, they want options. They want to be able to pay easily. When you consider embracing technology, you will notice an evolution of what the revenue cycle has always done. We were concerned about how to make the bills easier to read and understand five or six years ago. Text messaging and easy online payment capabilities have now accelerated payment mechanisms.

There must be around 40,000 different healthcare apps, and some of them make it simple to find a doctor.

Use data analytics to get a better picture of the revenue cycle

Revenue cycle analytics and the use of financial data are critical for making the revenue cycle more visible through charts and graphs. Dashboards and detailed reporting are recommended for improving revenue cycle management healthcare.

From the perspective of a provider, it starts with dashboards for reporting and key performance indicators to monitor transactions for payment denials and revenue management. More importantly, we can use analytics to determine whether our staff is focusing on the right things. Finally, you cannot manage what you do not measure.

We use analytics to predict whether denial or payment is based on a specific code, specific specialties, specific locations, or specific accounts. What we’re seeing with analytics now isn’t just a look in the rearview mirror, but when it comes to machines, we have a dedicated team of data scientists.

Monitoring KPIs to track the health of the revenue cycle is also essential.

Increasing the likelihood that patients will pay their bills

Targeting patients with a history of timely payments is one way to improve revenue cycle management. This may also reduce the financial burden on the hospital or clinic.

The fourth component is about leveraging patients’ willingness to pay. It ultimately aims to increase the likelihood of our staff anticipating where we’ll have collection issues, he explained. We’ll need to be timelier in recognizing whether we need to allow them the right financial counseling or whether we couple the predictability of payment, whether we’re targeting patients who have a history of being regular customers.

Clients are collaborating with third-party payers. We have clients who work more specifically with their own hospital-specific data. Finally, the idea is to leverage credit scores and our experience so that we can anticipate potential hiccups and problems and, ultimately, embrace the best practices that allow us to embrace technology.

View and update processes on a regular basis

It is critical to revisit daily processes to ensure that everything is running smoothly for optimal revenue cycle management. Even though many other work-related performances occur daily and it may be easier to address issues once they arise, it is safer to optimize revenue cycle management through a preventive approach by regularly checking on and updating technological processes.

Cross-departmental task forces or strategy groups can assist hospitals in optimizing their revenue cycle management. Meetings will require actionable items and goals in order to be more productive in terms of strengthening the revenue cycle.

Are you looking to get more insights into your medical practices, you can choose the AdvancedMD software which can streamline your practice.