There are two key parts to any healthcare facility’s revenue cycle: patient financial services (including enrollment, appointment scheduling, collections, and more) and medical coding. For your employees who work in each department, these two may seem like entirely different worlds sometimes, but communication and collaboration between the two are crucial for effective revenue cycle management. Inaccurate coding can make your hospital lose out on thousands of dollars of revenue each year, so improving the collaboration between patient financial services and coding is the best way to maximize cash flow.
Below, we explain why maintaining a healthy revenue cycle depends on a smooth partnership between patient financial services and medical coding.
RCM begins and ends with Patient Financial Services
The revenue cycle begins and ends with patient financial services, from the moment a patient first picks up the phone to make an appointment all the way through when they’ve made their last payment; therefore, the accuracy of your patient financial services plays a big role in the health of your entire revenue cycle.
A common issue that plagues hospitals and other facilities is a high rate of claims denials, and one reason for so many claims denials is the failure of a facility to properly and accurately check a patient’s insurance eligibility before providing treatment. Medical coders rely on knowing what treatments will be provided in order to transfer these treatments into medical code and submit a claim. A hospital should make sure it properly checks a patient’s eligibility prior to offering treatment to ensure the right information gets to the medical coders.
Where Medical Coding Comes In
Medical coders receive a record of the treatments provided by patient financial services and then must, in compliance with the latest ICD-10 guidelines, accurately use the corresponding code to submit the claim. If your hospital’s medical coding staff makes clerical errors while coding, the claim is likely to be denied. If this claim is not re-submitted, the patient will likely need to pay for the treatment in full. Accurate medical billing relies on accurate medical coding.
Having the most accurate medical coding practices in place ensures efficient patient financial services and vice versa. If your facility already exhibits accurate patient financial services, but you believe you are still missing out on revenue, you must refine your medical coding practices. Partnering with an expert healthcare support services provider is the best way to ensure you have truly accurate medical coding and a healthy revenue cycle.
ECLAT Health Solutions offers medical coding services that can complement your patient financial services and truly improve your RCM. Our coding experts are trained in ICD-10 procedures and always exhibit HIPAA compliance. We can guarantee a score of 95% or higher coding accuracy in our work. When we work with a client, their revenue goals become our revenue goals, and we work tirelessly to reach and exceed these goals. We are proud to offer this unique approach, which our satisfied customers call “The ECLAT Advantage.”
Make sure you have efficient and accurate medical coding to complement your patient financial services and earn you the most revenue possible. Learn more about ECLAT’s medical coding, medical billing, auditing, and consulting services by calling us at (703) 665-4499, or filling out our contact form!
