Tag: revenue cycle
Recent industry shifts, including the transition from volume- to value- based reimbursement, lower reimbursement and shrinking inpatient margins, increased bad debt due to high deductible health plans and other challenges, are causing undue stress for healthcare providers. It’s difficult for some organizations to manage complex reimbursement models or handle complex claims, so providers are often underpaid or write off revenue they are due. The cost to collect continues to rise when staff produces poor results or turnover is high. Additionally, hospital information system (HIS) conversions traditionally result in a backlog of accounts receivable (A/R), requiring incremental staff to support the conversion. 78% of CFOs are concerned about their revenue cycle platform capabilities for value-based payments and will outsource in lieu of investing in new technology.^ Experian Health\'s Revenue Cycle Services leverage Experian’s proprietary technologies and experienced staff to optimize revenue cycle management (RCM) performance to help you meet your financial goals, such as increasing A/R yield, lowering operating costs, and resolution of revenue leakage issues and denials. Contact us today to learn more about Experian Health’s Revenue Cycle Services. ^2015 Black Book Survey
There has been a lot of uncertainty with regards to what the future holds for healthcare in the U.S., but the reality is that the move away from transaction-based services where providers are paid by transaction or by interaction with their patients, into a world where some of those services will be paid as bundles, is a reality. At Experian Health, our perspective is that there isn’t going to be one single form of payment. There isn’t going to be only fee for transaction or only fee for value type payments. There is going to be a variety. And our solutions can help providers handle that. When we talk to our largest providers, they want to make sure that they are prepared for the future of healthcare, and that their payment and revenue cycle is robust enough that they can handle whether it is a fee for transaction interaction with the provider or with the patient as well as fee for value. In order to do that, they have to optimize their operations. There is a lot of belt tightening happening in the industry and people are trying to see and understand how best to organize, how best to analyze and facilitate that payment cycle. We believe that data and analytics are two of the key ways to do that. Our software tools as well as the data that we embed into that software helps optimize the revenue cycle. Listen to the complete podcast
Why is missing coverage so detrimental? When patients are unable to pay, providers see an increase in self-pay receivables - 97% of hospitals reported an increase in self-pay receivables compared with the prior fiscal year. When providers can’t collect, the result is uncompensated care $35.7 billion – The amount of uncompensated care hospitals provided in 2015 (AHA, Dec 2016, http://www.aha.org/content/15/uncompensatedcarefactsheet.pdf) Registration errors and frequently changing insurance coverage contribute to an increase in self-pay receivables and bad debt: 20% error rate: Wastes an estimated $15.5B in claims that are never corrected and re-processed. Find previously unidentified coverage to reduce bad debt Experian Health’s Coverage Discovery® solution provides an efficient and trusted means for healthcare providers to reduce misclassified self-pay accounts. Our advanced self-pay engine maximizes the actionable coverage found for our customers across government and commercial payers, previously missed due to frequently changing insurances, data entry mistakes or patient misrepresentation to avoid high deductible health plans. The benefits to you: Make coverage identification more efficient Reduce number of accounts sent to collections & charity Maximize insurance reimbursement revenue Identify primary, secondary, & tertiary coverage Automate the self-pay scrubbing process What are our clients are saying about Coverage Discovery: [Video] Murry Ford, Grady Health System: “Coverage Discovery has brought in quite a bit of revenue for us—revenue that we would not have identified otherwise.” [Video] Mike Simms, Cone Health: “Since we’ve been using Coverage Discovery, we’ve received over $3 million in payments—more than a 300% ROI. It’s well worth every dollar spent.” Here’s why Coverage Discovery is different: Flexibility: Multiple delivery options easily fit Coverage Discovery into your revenue cycle Time matters: Find coverage on-demand Powered by Experian: Billions of data assets improve account specific intelligence and maximize found coverage Relevant: Confidence Scoring reduces data noise and removes potential false-positives to ensure staff time is focused on actionable accounts Uncover previously unidentified coverage with Coverage Discovery.
Remember those commercials for the hamburger chain in the mid-1980’s? An elderly lady angrily shouted, “Where’s the beef?” in response to seeing a tiny burger on a large, fluffy bun. If that same creative concept were applied to healthcare today, perhaps the lady would proclaim, “Where’s the data?” when looking at the revenue cycle. While healthcare as a whole is moving toward using clinical data and analytics to enhance patient care, most organizations aren’t realizing the true potential of financial data to drive revenue cycle performance. So where does that potential lie? Quite simply, it lies in the vast amounts of financial data that healthcare organizations can access, yet do so ineffectively. By leveraging this existing data more appropriately, organizations can build and sustain margins while improving performance and enhancing the patient experience. Consider these three areas of opportunity to use data to drive the revenue cycle. Patient Access Correctly capturing and analyzing patient data at the initial point of contact allows an organization to reap large rewards, both clinically and financially. For example, correct patient identification reduces the risks of fraud and identity theft and ensures that medical records are being provided for the right patient, thus preserving patient safety. In addition, using data to provide accurate estimates of the patient’s payment responsibility up front and developing customized payment plans can elevate patient satisfaction as well as propensity to pay, allowing the healthcare organization to enhance collections and reduce bad debt. Claims and Contract Management Another area of opportunity is in payer contracts and claims. During contract negotiations, data and analytics help identify new service line opportunities for enhanced financial performance. Claims are more accurate and efficient when analytical tools review them before submission, comparing them with contract requirements and kicking out those with errors or ones that require further information. Consider the example of a healthcare organization that improved its recovery rate on denials by almost 50 percent by leveraging data to compare the amount received for the claim with the contracted amount. Collections Data and analytics also can be used to improve internal collections efficiency and profitability. Organizations can use data to segment accounts that share demographic and financial profiles, rather than simply looking at balance amounts and number of days open. This allows collections staff to prioritize work based on a patient’s likelihood to pay, which improves both collections and the patient experience. For example, a patient scoring in the “most likely to pay” segment may not need a call until day 75, while someone in a lower segment may need additional calls and help setting up a payment plan within the first month. Segmenting in this way not only increases the likelihood of successful payment, it preserves patient satisfaction at the same time. Realize your revenue cycle’s true potential by leveraging financial information to enhance performance. Moreover, marry these activities with efforts to use clinical data to improve care, and you can realize a comprehensive approach to elevating overall quality and performance. You’ll no longer need to ask, “where’s the data?” Learn more about leveraging data and analytics to drive the revenue cycle with this white paper: The new revenue cycle imperative: A data-driven approach to minimizing risk and optimizing performance.
