Healthcare billing services have undergone a great number of changes in the last few years owing to the intervention of digital interfaces and automation strategies. No wonder, more than 80% of the healthcare executives are planning to invest in artificial intelligence driven systems since 2020. But revenue leaders throughout the USA feel that the effects are yet to reflect on the financial ecosystem of the medical industry. They have expressed that though automation has drastically improved the healthcare workflow management, the patients are far from feeling comfortable when undergoing a medical procedure due to the complexity of the payment systems.
A survey conducted by the NORC at the University of Chicago and the West Health Institute back in 2018 showed that 40% of patients would rather not visit the clinic than bear the complex charges of the process. The global pandemic in 2020 has severely strained the economic condition of the healthcare industry, with revenue losses leading to several hospital shutdowns. Moving forward in 2021, revenue leaders are stressing on more sustainable and accommodating healthcare billing services to ensure that clinics run smoothly while increasing the patients’ confidence on the system.
This article has articulated 5 such areas that need improvement in 2021. Read on to know more.
1.Educating the Patients with Compassion:
- Gaps in patient education form the steps of confusion around financial responsibility. This is the first area of the healthcare industry that needs more delicate handling.
- Leaders from reputed health systems like Mount Carmel Health had to say that medical bills are complicated documents, which can seem difficult even for experienced professionals. Therefore the patients find it even more complex to breakdown.
- To ensure a positive experience for the patients, the healthcare systems should have sufficient resources to educate the patients about their options. But the key here is compassion.
- “Regarding the financial aspects of that mission, I refer to it as financial healing…it’s about trying to help the patient make the best decision and understand their financial obligation upfront rather than later,” said Ms. Hodgkinson, Chief Financial Officer at Mount Carmel Health.
- When the patients make an informed decision, the healthcare billing services become easier to handle. This is automatically reflected on the collections of the clinic, thereby improving the revenue cycle.
2.Personalized Healthcare Billing Services:
- Revenue leaders of 2021 believe that a generic approach to healthcare billing services has led to the suffering of patients in the past.
- This is the right time to invest in a more personalized financial experience for the patient so that they have improved faith in the system.
- This is also extremely crucial for the management team since a more tailor made approach can resolve several gaps in the revenue cycle.
- For example, inaccurate information regarding a patient’s payer network or dealing with several primary and secondary insurance carriers can lead to significant delay in collections.
- Beth Musser, Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management at Children’s Minnesota said, “Many of our families switch insurance carriers while they’re with us, which generates a lot of complexities and confusion.”
- To combat these issues, Children’s Minnesota has resorted to maintaining financial advisory care units for families who need guidance to fund a rather long stay at the hospital.
3.Incorporating Price Transparency:
- CMS announced its price transparency rule which came into effect from 1st January, 2021. In simple terms, CMS wants patients to know about the healthcare service estimates from various organizations to form a consumer-friendly model.
- The transition to a value-based care model had started way back in 2016, but declaring healthcare estimates to amplify patient’s knowledge prior to the service has clearly accelerated the process.
- The healthcare organizations need to respond to this rule to make sure that the patients get what they need.
- Healthcare organizations like Spectrum Health have kept this point on high priority through advanced technological systems.
- Spectrum Health in particular is going for an automated system that will help them to pick out patients for financial aids.
- Leveraging technology to cater to targeted financial needs will improve the collection time and keep the revenue cycle up and running, feels Ms. Assenmacher, Senior Vice President of Revenue Cycle for Grand Rapids from Spectrum Health.
4.Supporting the Staff with Automated Healthcare Billing Services:
- Revenue leaders across the USA are trying to support their billing staff by bringing in automation in their daily workflow.
- From billing software systems to patient verification tools, the management is trying to lighten their work burden by automating their manual and repetitive processes.
- Incorporating technology in the billing services not only helps the workers but also helps to improve the revenue cycle management by eliminating unnecessary errors that occur during manual functions.
- To ensure that the staff makes the best use of these systems, regular staff training and rewarding is extremely crucial, feel the leaders.
- Reiterating the same philosophy, Katie Zacher, Executive Director of AdventHealth Cancer Institute says, “We do a lot of ongoing training to make sure these teams don’t have any issues with compassion fatigue.”
5.Partnership with Expert Billing Teams:
- Healthcare leaders in 2021 are looking towards envisioning and implementing their financial goals with the evolving demands in the industry.
- Financial goals in the current times are significantly different from the ones in the past. Expert dedicated billing teams can help them to grow and realize these goals.
- Outsourcing revenue cycle management companies are moving beyond being mere vendors and using their acquired varied expertise to translate client specific goals into reality.
- This means that they are functioning like an extension of the in-house teams, and working towards tailor-made plans.
- With the help of these expert teams, healthcare organizations can reverse their revenue losses in a much shorter span of time and stabilize their cash flow.
We hope this blog helped you learn the 5 ways how revenue leaders want healthcare billing services to improve in 2021. How are you evaluating the revenue cycle in your company? Please let us know! For any queries, please leave a comment below. We will get back to you shortly. For more updates on healthcare management and technology, please subscribe to our blog. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to get regular updates.