Improving Revenue Cycle Management of Healthcare Practice

Improving Revenue Cycle Management of Healthcare Practice

Efficient revenue cycle management is essential for healthcare practice to operate successfully. Revenue cycle management includes all necessary functions starting from collecting patient information up to receiving accurate reimbursements for delivered services. Revenue cycle directly affects the practice’s bottom line and indirectly affects patient care. Revenue cycle management today is about much more than traditional billing and collecting activities. To make the most out of revenue cycle management and keep up with healthcare industry changes and trends, providers should fully understand what revenue cycle management is and must work towards its constant improvement.

Improving Revenue Cycle Management

Improved Patient Care

Patients are the most important factor to consider when running a medical practice. Quality patient care is more than just providing treatment. It’s providing a satisfactory experience where patients feel heard, acknowledged, and guided through what may be a very stressful time in their lives. For many patients, healthcare and insurance can be intimidating and confusing. Providers should aim to make the patient experience as stress-free as possible. By providing a more satisfactory patient experience, a healthcare practice can guarantee those patients will return the next time they need medical care. That means higher profitability for the provider.

Accurate Coding

Adoption of accurate coding practices will aid in generating higher revenues and decreasing claim denials from insurance carriers. By achieving optimal coding compliances, a healthcare facility can prevent disruption of the medical flow and avoid regulatory penalties. While these processes are tough to manage in-house, handing it over to experts and professionals from billing companies like Legion Health Care Solutions could improve RCM efficiency. Our certified coders are well versed with medical speciality specific and payer specific coding guidelines.

Reduce Denials

Within the revenue cycle process, claim denials cost each healthcare provider an average of $5 million every year. Its acceptable practice to receive claim denials up to 5 percent of total submitted claims. It might happen due to continuously changing industry and payer specific billing guidelines. But claim denials more than 10 percent could be a cause of concern. You might be following wrong billing practices or your RCM team may not be sufficiently skilled or experienced to do the job. Whatever might be the reason, every denied claim should be addressed and must be reworked and submitted on time to avoid timely filling limits. Best way to reduce denials is, work on every single claim, talk to the insurance rep on denial reason, discuss the resolution and modify your billing process flow accordingly.

Patient Education

Patients can make better decisions about planned medical procedures when they are educated about basics of medical billing and insurance coverage/ healthcare plan benefits. You need to educate patients early in the process of medical treatment or medical care. This will ensure patients are not surprised when they receive a medical bill after discharge or a medical appointment. Healthcare staff will need to be prepared to help estimate the costs of care for each medical services so that patients are prepared to pay their bills. Additionally, patients will need to be updated on any financial assistance programs they may qualify for. Educating patients on these financials is becoming an important part of revenue cycle management, as it helps hospitals and clinics avoid debt collection. Cost transparency is also an important part of improving patient communication.

Outsourcing RCM

Providers can improve their RCM by outsourcing it to a medical billing company like Legion Health Care Solutions. By associating with an experienced and knowledgeable company to manage their revenue cycle, providers can guarantee the revenue cycle’s success without having to commit excess time to it. Plus, by not managing the revenue cycle themselves, providers can dedicate more time to quality patient care. An increase in prompt, accurate provider reimbursement while boosting patient focus is a win for patients, providers, and administrative staff alike.

Legion Health Care Solutions is a leading medical billing company that can assist you in revenue cycle functions for your practice. We constantly keep track of key medical billing metrics to receive accurate insurance reimbursements for our clients. Please call us to know more about our billing and coding services at 727-475-1834 or email info@legionhealthcaresolutions.com

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