You have constantly worked hard to protect your staff as well as patients during the battle with the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 infections, but have you observed your bottom line and the financial health of your organization. The sudden rise of erratic and unpredictable workload affects your revenue cycle management, according to a recent survey of 587 hospital finance leaders.
Today, we are recovering from the covid-19 pandemic as most Americans are vaccinated and financial leaders are looking out for optimization of revenue cycle management. However, COVID-19 drives certain trends such as healthcare consumerism and rising healthcare costs that put enormous pressure on healthcare organizations. Hence healthcare organizations are now revamping their processes to ensure smooth revenue cycle management in the future. In this blog, you will understand various strategies to optimize revenue cycle management post-covid-19.
Improve the patient experience with front end optimization
The front end is the first touchpoint with the patient for any healthcare practice hence you have only one chance to offer to enhance the experience that impacts the remainder of patients’ visits. Moreover, optimizing the front-end revenue cycle ensures to reduce headaches on the backend.
With front-end optimization, various healthcare organizations can be able to reduce rework on correct insurance claims, verification of accurate demographics for the patient, and collect the patient’s financial responsibility.
The advancement of technology ensures front-end optimization with the help of automated and bi-directional communications processes. Moreover, engaging digitally with patients for patient intake has empowered healthcare organizations to offer contactless registration to patients, which is safer for the patient and staff.
Automating the mundane task and workflow
You know team members that are part of revenue cycle management perform many mundane tasks such as eligibility verification, claim status follow-up, and patient statement creation for accurate and quick reimbursement of claims. But technology is always a better solution to automate these tasks and freeing up team members to focus on more value-adding, complex tasks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are playing a crucial role in the performance of revenue cycle management. AI has already established its presence across many industries, and healthcare organizations are exploring ways to harness AI’s transformative power.
Today various healthcare leaders are trusting for various use cases of AI in healthcare out of which prior authorization is one of the best use cases. However, PA includes one of many burdensome processes in a transaction-heavy part of the revenue cycle.
It is observed that workflow automation on the front end of the revenue cycle has helped a lot of healthcare practices during the pandemic. By automating the process, the practice was able to clear patients’ days prior to an appointment that reduces the need for unnecessary contact and in-person check-in when telehealth took over.
Need for collaboration with the billing company
It is very difficult for small healthcare organizations to optimize revenue cycle management because many physician practices are having to lack access to capital, technology, people, and other resources to dive into an end-to-end optimization project. Additionally, continuously growing healthcare organizations may find themselves with a patchwork of revenue cycle processes and technologies that can hamper the management of the organization. These are some indications of to need for collaboration with the billing company and currently outsourcing of revenue cycle management is a popular and cost-efficient solution.
Outsourcing will help you to overcome various common revenue cycle challenges, such as slow reimbursement, inefficient workflows, and lack of technology. Moreover, this COVID-19 pandemic acts as a catalyst for outsourcing.
The in-house team that is handling revenue cycle management operations may not be a possibility or cost-effective for some organizations right now hence Healthcare practices are looking for collaboration with the billing company.
We are a medical billing company with HIPAA-compliant professionals. Our experts possess great expertise in revenue cycle management which leads to our 96% clean claim submission rate for our customers.
