As the worlds begin to open up under the continues caution in response to the COVID-19 outbreak of the novel corona virus, it’s hard to know what the future holds for healthcare. The outbreak has been a major cause of concern for healthcare providers and organizations across the globe and is having a massive impact on revenues and the revenue cycle management industry. Many hospitals and health systems are struggling through severe financial losses and the ripple effect is on the entire revenue cycle. Therefore, it’s high time for providers and organization to reconsider RCM outsourcing.
From, prior authorizations & insurance benefits verification to billing & collections, to payment & denial posting – there are some lots of areas in revenue cycle management (RCM) that could be better managed by an outsource partner, containing the cost behind it.
If you haven’t reconsidered outsourcing your RCM, or your time just hasn’t been right before – here are four reasons, that to tell you, why it might be the best time to outsource RCM.
Outsourcing supports immediate cost control
It’s important to understand that, outsourcing RCM may not fully replace all in-house RCM teams – you can certainly save significantly on some labour costs. An outsourcing partner can rapidly deploy a team of highly skilled experts to support critical RCM functions. RCM staff than can be shifted to support the vital roles such as incident management teams, point-of-entry screening, or telehealth functions. Your outsourcing partner can effectively accept these vacant RCM positions to reduce the costing on organizations, as the RCM allocated hospital staff can be reallocated to other areas of need.
Outsourcing is affordable for every scale as volumes fluctuate
Providers and organisations do not have ideas for patient volumes at any point. For example- now is the time when telehealth volumes have skyrocketed, but procedural volumes have dropped, no one knows what to expect. Therefore, outsourcing RCM function provides you the ability to immediately flex resources to scale up or down as volumes fluctuate. This can help reduce labour costs and make is extremely affordable for healthcare providers and organizations to control overhead costs, and keep operations moving swiftly & smoothly – regardless of the patient volume.
Related Article: Patient Access: The Foundation of Revenue Cycle Enhancement Process
Streamlining the RCM supports for long term success
Conflicting to popular belief, outsourcing isn’t just about cutting costs, it’s a long-term success. It’s about improving efficiency, enhancing performance & accuracy, and continuous improvement. By outsourcing RCM functions, you’ll be getting a different perspective of a revenue cycle from an expert. RCM experts can soon understand the best practices, and can provide critical feedback on how your organization can improve in comparison to others of similar size and speciality. They can also focus to identify root cause issues, areas of opportunity, and how to recover lost revenue that you never knew existed. Experts helps in identifying un-coded claims, new opportunities for clinical documentation, improvement in collecting on denials and underpayments, heightened accuracy and reducing aged receivables. RCM outsourcing can help increase revenue, optimize reimbursement, and boost cashflow.
Outsourcing allows providers and organizations to focus on what they do best- Patient Care
Healthcare providers and organizations aren’t trained to focus on billing, coding, payer relations, or clinical documentation improvement. Their primary responsibility is to provide exemplary patient care and deliver the best possible patient experience. RCM is a non-patient-facing function, and outsourcing helps providers do what matters most, while leaving key business functions to the experts.
Outsourcing isn’t for every practice. However, some practices do outsource the RCM, and even then, they tend to see strong results. But, a survey conducted by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) showed that medical practices outsourcing their RCM typically see improved performance across collections, staff productivity and several other areas.
If you are considering to outsource your revenue cycle management functions, and are likely wondering where to start? Don’t worry – you are in the right place –
iPatientCare, is a leading provider in transforming RCM services by FREE Cloud-based Meaningful Use Stage-3 certified EHR and PMS technology. It provides efficient, responsive and accountable billing implementation and back-office services that give more than 98% first-pass claims submission and efficient A/R follow-up/denial management at very competitive rates. To learn more visit iPatientCare’s Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management.
