Healthcare

The process of outsourcing a hospital’s accounts receivable or any other medical office for that matter, does not start with handing over accounts and waiting to see what happens next. Instead, accounts receivable management starts with a good amount of planning and understanding what benefits A/R outsourcing will provide a hospital in the first place. When accounts are actually transferred for management, the office will already have a clear plan on what to expect as well as how to redirect resources now freed up from managing accounts directly.

Crazy times in the world of revenue cycle management. Based on everything you see, hear, and read: revenue cycle management teams have their hands full with a ‘to do’ list that runs the gamut on areas of concern – system conversions, new systems, new processes, new laws, new regulations, new financials, change management, and a ton of uncertainty.  How to prioritize the work, how to parse out the work, and how to execute change has a lot of Revenue Cycle Management teams really stressed out.   

So when you outsource, what are you really buying?

In a past career I needed to develop a better revenue forecasting and goal model for a centralized recovery operation (I oversaw the Agency Management arm of that recovery operation). What I wanted was a model that could accurately forecast gross and net revenues, account for multiple product lines, quickly roll-up numbers (product line, division, corporate) and drill down on numbers (vendor, batch, month), and establish goals for vendors.

Patient Satisfaction is a real hot topic in the healthcare industry these days. For obvious reasons, keeping patients satisfied has always been a top priority for healthcare providers. However, in addition to the already known risks of earning a bad reputation or losing patients to competitors, there's now the added risk of hazards like reduced reimbursement rates.