Maintaining a steady income stream is important if your healthcare center facing a decline in cash flows, an increment in debt, and margins tightening. It might seem difficult but it’s actually very easy to manage and boost revenue.
There are many opportunities to increase the revenue and manage the revenue cycle management. And, the internet has made it super-easy because you have an access to expert opinions and advice.
In fact, many outsource providers are selling their services online so you can research, check authenticity and avail the services with ease. You might have noticed that other healthcare centers are doing well in terms of cash flow and revenue generation. That’s because now the healthcare industry is more inclined towards outsourcing back-office support from trusted partners such as G.I Health Solutions.
But, before you rush to any search engine, here are the top 7 tricks to Boost Revenue Cycle Management.
Start Trending and Benchmarking the Data
Everybody is familiar with the fact that you can’t measure what you can’t manage. And it’s pretty much true with the healthcare data as well. However, if you start benchmarking the data, there are chances that you might identify the areas and improves them. You can trend and benchmark the data in the best and most effective way through DOS.
It’s a healthcare data operating system that compiles data from IT systems, clinical, human resources, patient satisfaction scores, financial, and others. After compilation, it optimizes the data for analysis.
Once you review the compiled data for analysis, you start pointing and visualizing. That way, you better gauge things by digging deep and discovering the root cause of a certain issue or trend.
Make sure to go through hospital and physician’s billing data when trending the billing data to clarify everything related to the revenue cycle. For comparison with other healthcare systems, you can buy benchmark data for your ease. In fact, the best option is (Healthcare Financial Management Association) HFMA’s MAP (Measure, Apply, Perform). It automatically sets the industry trends for revenue cycle excellence.
If you are an HFMA member, you can easily access the benchmark data and compare the analytics to improve RCM.
Utilize a Trusted Way to Mine the Data
To boost the revenue cycle, you have to use trusted ways to mine the data and DOS is best for it. It’s a very powerful tool that allows you to mine the data, identify the gaps and point out how to amend it. Get an experienced analyst on board and drill deep to see what data beholds and then improve it to bring a change in the organization.
But, being a member of regulating bodies, you must focus on one thing; which is the solution. Many times, higher authorities love to play the blame game and the problem stands still. Check out every queue with patience and you will soon discover what’s bothering and disturbing the entire revenue cycle.
The entire process must take place in a peaceful and comfortable atmosphere as uneasy surroundings just double up the issues but nothing else. In fact, working in a comfortable atmosphere helps you to find out the roadblocks quickie and easily and you can team up with others to resolve them.
Take Advice From Frontline Staff
Working and managing things with DOS is great and you can boost the revenue efficiently. However, it’s equally important to ask for suggestions from the frontline staff. Once you identified the roadblock or the cause which slowed down the cash flow, go with the suggested and effective way.
Ask your frontline staff and consult with them to resolve the issue quickly. Gradually take a check on them for further suggestions because employees who work within the organization often come up with practical solutions. To makes things better and faster, you can reexamine the workaround periodically and ask questions such as:
- What alternatives have you implemented?
- Is there still a need for a workaround?
- What might you do to get rid of obstacles and workarounds?
Once you throw these questions, you will be surprised to know the answers because the frontline staff upholds great insight to share. For a sustainable change, adding them to the entire improvement plan will generate guaranteed results.
Generate a Loyal Client Base
Clients or customers can make or break a brand. The same goes for the healthcare industry where improving the revenue cycle management requires a loyal client base. But, the question is, how you will do it?
Allocating care coordinators for the medical and healthcare centers is important. Care coordinators are medical experts who understand and explain the management regarding the primary concerns of patients. They elaborate to the paramedical staff about the obstacles faced by the patients.
In fact, care coordinators deliver a sense of seriousness and care to the patients. They make the patients realize that they matter to you and you have great concerns for their health. That way, you will be able to enhance patients’ trust in you and can give a rise to a strong and loyal client base.
Customers’ satisfaction and improvement in revenue are interlinked with each other so you have to be mindful in these areas as well. Most people make the mistake that they hire experts and panels to identify the obstacles in revenue cycle management but don’t pay attention to the main area of focus; customer satisfaction and trust.
Hand Over an Introductory Pre-admission Contact Form
Before admitting a patient, send them a pre-admission contact form. In fact, every hospital has a list of their patients who come for consultation before taking the appointment. Check out that list and contact the patients to send them the contact form.
Make sure to design the form in such a way that covers the contact info, payment procedures, and time duration of the payment. It will help the patients to understand the billing procedure and reduce the chance of errors and blunders regarding the payment process.
Having a super-smooth and easy billing process makes the patients trust you as an authentic and reliable hospital whereas, enhances the revenue cycle system.
The Bottom Line
The medical industry is booming and what’s more interesting is that they are hiring BPO service providers to eliminate all the human errors for a smooth cash flow. You can do the same by consulting G.I Health Solutions because they are helping many healthcare providers in the billing and other transactional activities.
