2018 has arrived, and many healthcare facilities are using the New Year as an opportunity to restructure and improve their practices to ensure a successful year. Some healthcare facilities’ new year resolutions may involve improving their revenue cycle management. This resolution is certainly important, as poor RCM can make hospitals and other facilities miss out on millions of dollars of revenue every year.
At ECLAT Health Solutions, we are dedicated to helping our clients improve their RCM to earn a better revenue flow. If your practice’s goal for 2018 is to earn a healthier RCM, here are a few of our suggested best practices you should adopt this year:
Promote Billing Transparency & Provide Payment Options
In recent years, the number of patients who must pay for healthcare out-of-pocket has increased. This larger burden on patients often results in facilities receiving late payments, or not receiving them at all. Although facilities cannot completely guarantee that a patient will end up paying their bill (even with collection notices), they can take two simple measures to help increase their rate of payments.
Both administrative and clinical staff should be transparent and open when it comes to explaining the medical bill. Administrative staff who handle collecting payments from the patient should especially be trained to communicate upfront with the patient and make sure they understand what they owe. Your facility should also offer a variety of payment options. Providing patients with the ability to enroll in a payment plan, pay with cash, check, or credit card, and/or use automatic payments helps make their medical bill much more affordable and increase the likelihood that they will pay on time.
Monitor the Claims Process
Claims denials are a common reason why many facilities do not have healthy RCM. Claims denials may occur as a result of a coding error, because a patient does not have the right insurance coverage, and more. Because claims may be denied for a variety of reasons, it is crucial that your facility closely investigates and watches the claims process at every step of the way. Understanding the status of each claim as well as identifying why your claims are denied can help your staff recognize patterns and learn how to prevent many claims denials. If your facility suffered a large number of claims denials in 2017, consider restructuring your claims processes this year.
Maintain HIPAA and HITECH Compliance
Today’s healthcare world is full of shifting regulations and, unfortunately, a rise of security breaches. After the Equifax breach flooded the news in 2017, many healthcare providers were left uncertain about the effectiveness of their own security processes and practices. Providers must always maintain HIPAA and HITECH compliance to ensure that their patients’ sensitive financial information remains safe. Confidentiality is not the only reason to obey HIPAA/HITECH guidelines, however. Healthcare facilities and practices can face significant penalties such as fines for failing to comply with these regulations. This harms the revenue cycle, and of course, can lead to less revenue at year’s end. Learn more about the importance of compliance in our post “Why HIPAA & HITECH Compliance Is Increasingly Crucial in Today’s World.”
Hire an Expert Medical Coding Company
If your RCM could use improvement, partner with an expert medical coding and billing company. ECLAT Health Solutions offers comprehensive medical coding, medical billing, and ICD-10 auditing services to help your practice earn a healthier revenue cycle. We provide 24-hour turnaround on our services and we can guarantee a score of 95% or higher coding accuracy. Our billers and coders are highly trained and always maintain HIPAA/HITECH compliance, so you can be sure your facility will earn the high-quality service it requires. We work closely with you as an extension of your company and make your revenue goals our goals.
Make 2018 the year your revenue cycle thrives. Contact ECLAT today to get started.
