5 Super Useful Tips To Improve Revenue Cycle Management In The Age Of COVID-19
In today’s healthcare landscape, the economic fallout due to COVID 19 pandemic is seriously affecting the people, hospitals, healthcare professionals, and also other healthcare facilities. The American Hospital Association (AHA) estimates the country’s hospitals and health systems could lose $120.5 billion between July and December 2020.
So, healthcare practices need to align their care delivery processes to focus more on the patient than ever before. That’s why it is important to improve your revenue cycle management process for improved cash flow. Here are the 6 super useful tips to achieve it in the right manner.
1. Choose The Best RCM Software
If you wish to enhance your medical billing operations and achieve a steady cash flow, revenue cycle management software should be your first choice. Choose the best software which cost-effectively offers advanced RCM features. Right from patient registration to payment collection, everything can be done with the software in just with few clicks. Don’t forget to train your billing staff to work on the software to capture the right information and deliver it to the patients (if needed).
Benefits Of Using RCM Software:
- Error-free billing
- Accurate claim submission
- Automated payment posting
- On-time Insurance eligibility check
- Automated medical scheduling
- Quality reporting
2. Review Denied Claims Quickly
Denied claims are medical claims that have been received and processed by the payer, but have been marked as unpayable. These “unpayable” claims typically contain some sort of error or lack of prior authorization that became flagged after the claim was processed. Some of the issues for denials may include missing information, non-covered services per plan, or even not medically necessary services.
Most of the time denied claims can be corrected, appealed, and sent back to the payer for processing. However, this process can be time-consuming, expensive, and requires a lot of resources to get to the core of the issue. If a denied claim is resubmitted without an appeal or reconsideration request and not as a corrected claim, it will most likely be considered a duplicate claim and denied again.
If this happens, the claim will remain unpaid and can cause major issues for a provider’s bottom line, especially if it is a recurring issue. Time is also a factor when resubmitting denied claims. So, addressing any denied claims within 24 hours of receipt increases the potential that the claim ends up being paid.
RELATED: 5 Steps You Should Do Today For Medical Claim Billing Success
3. Establish Payment Plans
In the past, healthcare organizations relied on insurance companies to pay, but this situation has entirely changed now. They need to depend on patients to collect payments. In that case, healthcare organizations should establish payment plans for all patients during the registration process. To provide flexible payment options to pay and also educate the patients on their financial responsibility so they pay on time once services are provided.
Make sure that systems for online payment, medical savings accounts, payment by phone, debit card, credit card, and others are available to your patients to use. The more methods you have available, the faster you’ll receive and process those payments.
4. Focus On AR Management
Proper AR management is the key to better RCM. So, healthcare organizations must conduct periodical audits to track medical billing operations and collections. The billing team is responsible for AR follow up and manage them correctly. Vozo ensures a perfect AR follow-up process as they have highly-trained AR experts who accurately analyze, appeal, or re-file the claims promptly.
Vozo AR follow up process includes:
- Identification and selection of accounts that require follow-up with insurance providers to know the claim status.
- A corrective action is planned and executed to receive the pending AR payment.
5. Consider Outsourcing
One of the best ways to improve your RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) process is to outsource RCM solutions to experienced providers. These companies already come loaded with the right technology, software, and trained staff. So you don’t need to worry about the billing process, claim rejections, and payment collections and you can concentrate on delivering better care for patients.
Choose the Right Partner for healthy RCM
VOZO delivers patient-focused revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions that help hospitals in increasing cash flow by managing denied claims and improving patient satisfaction. Our comprehensive and flexible healthcare revenue cycle management services are designed in a way to meet the specific needs of your hospital and community. With our RCM solutions, you can increase your clean claims submission rate and speed up cash collections simply by managing electronic claims effectively.
Benefits of Choosing Vozo RCM solutions:
- Faster claims payment
- Improved quality of care
- Increased average % of claims paid after 1st submission
- Reduced denial rate
- Accurate patient information
- A higher percentage of clean claims
- Reduced outstanding AR
