Today I came across a whitepaper called 7 Strategies for Revenue Cycle Management Success. I continue to be amazed by how many practices can benefit from better revenue cycle management. So much so that hundreds of companies thrive on the back of a practice’s revenue. This is true for a number of EHR companies as well.
For those who don’t want to download the full whitepaper with all the details on the 7 strategies, here’s the list:
Strategy #1: Monitor Payments
Strategy #2: Perform Financial Clearance
Strategy #3: Collect from Patients
Strategy #4: Manage Denials
Strategy #5: Establish Employee Expectations
Strategy #6: Avoid the Snowball Effect
Strategy #7: Report on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
As I look through this list and read through the whitepaper, all of it just points to quality management of processes. There’s nothing on the list that’s rocket science. It’s just taking the time and effort to make sure that all of your practice’s processes are well organized and thorough. As you can imagine, that’s a problem for many organizations. That’s why so many practices outsource this work to another company.
When I consider where revenue cycle management is headed, I wonder how these new value based reimbursement models will impact revenue cycle management companies. My guess is that many of them will just see it as the same process applied to new clinical values and measures. However, I think that value based reimbursement is going to require companies to go much deeper with a practice. If the practice is now responsible for a population of users and not just the ones they’ve seen in their office, that’s going to take a very different skill set.
What is clear to me is that many practices are going to need some help from an outside company even in a value based reimbursement environment. I’m just not sure which companies will be providing those services.