Healthy Revenue Cycle Habits

Capturing every dollar of patient revenue is critical to your hospital’s financial health, especially during a crisis when some facilities have reduced or no patient volume.

MEDHOST has found that the average community hospital may lose 5% to 10% of its potential revenue from poor revenue cycle habits.  Many times, historical under-billings that are months or even years old can be recovered.

Losses generally result from three sources:

• Incomplete of inaccurate information gathered at admissions preventing successful claim filing.
• Poor maintenance of payor contracts and the charge master.
• Lack of persistent follow-up on denials focusing on the largest, highest yield claims first.

Healthy Revenue Cycle Habits are a two-stage process.  You must catch-up on the deferred maintenance on payor contracts and the charge master, and then establish good controls to ensure they are maintained in the future.

An adage in quality control says, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  Measurement includes regular scheduled updates of the underlying revenue cycle systems and continuous monitoring of the results.  For example, a Daily Variance Report provided to key operating and financial managers reveals changes in billing yields and a Production Report ensures that charges are being billed and resolved promptly.

MEDHOST can help. A revenue cycle consultant is available to answer any questions you may have about this blog and to assist in assessing your current revenue cycle health.  Email us at inquiries@medhost.com or call 1.800.383.6278 to learn more.

MEDHOST Business Office Services offers tools like online bill pay, patient statements, revenue cycle assessments, and business services to help you achieve your financial goals.