Avoiding Common Errors in Revenue Cycle Management

Providers need to improve their revenue cycle processes for accommodating the changes in the healthcare industry. In order to ensure smooth operations, they need prompt payments from patients as well as insurers. They need to manage the revenue cycle effectively because even though the financial impact on one claim may seem small, the effect on the bottom line will be huge when multiplied by hundreds of visits a week.

Revenue Cycle Management

Here are some common RCM mistakes that can halt the progress of your practice:

Don’t make the mistake of relying on your existing staff for handling increased A/R activities. At times, lack of skilled professionals and budget constraint forces providers to “make do” with existing staff to manage increased A/R volume. What they don’t realize is when the volume of patients increases, the staff can’t touch all accounts in a timely manner and this will affect the revenue cycle. Finding experienced Medical Billing Company and A/R experts maybe a challenging task but you need to have the right people if you want to keep your revenue cycle humming.

If you are expecting self-pay results when you practice has only sent statements, then you are in trouble. Unfortunately, a patient-friendly billing statement may not be sufficient for getting patients to pay on time. Even the process of getting payments via inbound calls isn’t an effective way of maximizing returns. To solve this problem, practices need to build an effective outbound calling strategy that will not only drive more payments from patients but also improve the overall experience of patients.

One of the biggest RCM mistakes that providers make is not providing enough payment options to patients. It has become necessary for healthcare facilities to leverage new technologies and trends instead of sticking to traditional, outdated strategies. Payment procedures need to be simplified for patients if you want to get timely payments for rendered services.

When you are setting up RCM system for your practice, you need to implement coding function for flagging all possible coding errors. Before claims are officially filed, employees will be flagged for common mistakes. Even information filing will have to be spruced up. The RCM system will be combing patient files and flagging billing information. This is necessary because the most common mistakes can happen in billing.

So if you are witnessing mistakes in your RCM, then start making necessary changes today.