Medical practices are no stranger to financial challenges. Rising operating costs, shifting reimbursement models, unknown healthcare reforms and outstanding balances are just some of the difficulties a hospital or healthcare facility may face on a day-to-day basis. These complications and uncertainties leave healthcare companies feeling pressured to improve their revenue cycle and maximize patient collections.
Asking for money - even when the bill is overdue - is never enjoyable. While it can be unpleasant collecting payment from patients, it is essential for the ongoing success of your practice.
Topics: Revenue Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle Services, Revenue Cycle Solutions
Let’s face it, collecting patient payment can be difficult Sometimes, it can be a long, drawn out, and even uncomfortable process. But, there are steps you can take to significantly smooth and simplify the patient collection process. And we’ve put together some of the big wins.
Topics: Revenue Cycle Management, healthcare
Health care companies have faced some of the biggest shifts in operations, regulations, and general practice in nearly any industry. The changes are coming hard and fast and only the most nimble of organizations have been able to navigate them without much interruption. But, nimble and healthcare are not usually synonymous with each other. Aside of insurance regulation and patient satisfaction, many healthcare organizations are finding themselves struggling with revenue cycle management (RCM).
Topics: Revenue Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle Services, Revenue Cycle Solutions
Healthcare executives today are faced with a critical challenge: to outsource or not to outsource? It’s the question on everybody’s mind, and for good reason. Choosing between an outsourced or in-house revenue cycle management (RCM) solution isn’t easy, and there is a lot to consider before you make your final decision.
Topics: Revenue Cycle Management
Financial woes were a common resonating theme throughout the healthcare industry in 2014 and all signs are pointing to a 2015 that follows the same trend. Healthcare organizations are being forced to reestablish budgets and rearrange strategies largely in part to the following:
Topics: Revenue Cycle Management, Healthcare BPO Companies, Revenue Cycle Services
As a large healthcare organization, your primary responsibility is premier patient care… we get that. And with Medicare reimbursements now tied to patient satisfaction scores (courtesy of none other than the Affordable Care Act), the emphasis on quality of care and patient happiness is more important than ever before.
Topics: BPO, Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Revenue Cycle Management, Healthcare BPO Companies
A high deductible plan means the patient is paying more out of pocket expense for health care services. It is a health insurance plan with a high deductible and normally has a lower premium. People pick high deductible plans because the out of pocket premiums are lower and fit into a tight budget more easily. Employers like high deductible plans as a way to save money on health care coverage for employees. However, high deductible plans can have an impact on health care facilities or on a hospital’s revenue cycle. The impact is not always in a favorable manner.
Topics: Patient Deductibles, healthcare receivable management, Revenue Cycle Management, Healthcare Reform, HSA
According to the Medical Group Management Association, high-performing medical groups have a four percent claims denial rate. If your denial rate is over 4%, don’t blame your payers; instead, look at your business’s processes. Timing problems, manual mistakes, and input oversights may be causing most of the denials.
Something you could do before submitting claims to make sure they're clean is ask yourself the following questions! Clean claims = less denaisl. Print them out and post them to your bulletin board!
Topics: healthcare receivable management, Revenue Cycle Management, Denial Management, Denials, Claims, Insurance Claim Denials
Before I started making sales pitches to CFOs, Directors, and VPs on why I think they should make VARO Healthcare an extension of their business office, I was making sales pitches to regular people (all jobs aside) - in their homes. And guess what I was selling? I was selling cemetery plots. Yep. But, it was BEFORE death. Awkward. Cold-calling daily and making appointments with people in their homes to convince them to pre-plan their funeral expenses. I’d go through an entire presentation all the while trying to evoke some sort of emotion about how much better it is to pre-plan rather than put your family through the hassle of dealing with it after they die. Weird, I know. It’s difficult to persuade people to believe in what you’re selling, even though YOU believe in it, “yes, you should spend XYZ now to pre-plan so your family won’t have to later”.
Topics: Hospitals, change management, Outsourcing, Revenue Cycle Management
