As per the Global Medical Trends survey by WTW, the healthcare costs in the US will be on the higher side in 2024. Maintaining hospital accounts receivable to cope with the increasing healthcare costs has become more important than ever. Due to the one in a century crisis, most of the hospitals are still facing challenges regarding cumulative negative margins.
AR management consists of procedures including locating unpaid or denied claims, cutting down AR days, resubmitting amended claims and so on.
Hospital Accounts Receivable Collections in a Challenging Environment
Expenses will continue to rise along with the labor shortage. Currently many providers like you are stuck with fragments of disconnected data, leaving them with an incomplete picture of the revenue cycle. In addition to that, downloading and analyzing the data with brute manual force is creating a hindrance for the providers and existing staff. When you are stuck in this kind of situation, you analyze a very few dimensions of the AR.
Without the implementation of technology, the packaged reports created by your EMRs do not provide you with a clear picture of the organizational performance. For instance, when your staff only goes after only high dollar claims, they might miss the opportunity to recover a whole slew of hospital accounts receivable.
Data Analytics for Hospital Accounts Receivable
1. Analytics is a backbone: Implementation of multidimensional analytics within your system can help you to understand the bigger picture of the industry. Key performance metrics to understand the AR performance include net collection ratio, aging, denial rates and trends, staff productivity. It can provide you with actionable information that translates to significant improvements in your collections.
2. Benchmark and task prioritization: You need to benchmark the existing metrics of AR and prioritize recovery tasks. An effective data-driven strategy will help you to understand the available resources and individual AR collection challenges.
3. Analytics to monitor: You need to understand the staff performance and workflow. Implementing analytics within the process will streamline your workflow and provide guidance to prioritize collection tasks. Furthermore, with analytics you can identify the bottlenecks and make an informed decision to remove those.
Bring in a Partner for Larger Backlogs
Many providers like you are struggling with several backlogs and reduced or loss revenue. In this situation, the quickest way to refurb your collection is to bring a third party. A revenue cycle management partner will help you to scale your recovery efforts while reducing your overhead expenses.
Experienced RCM staff understand the payor guidelines and negotiate with them to resolve the issues of hospital accounts receivable. Faster cashflow, fewer denials, higher recovery rates- all you can have with a genuine RCM partner.
When engaging a partner, make sure they offer both domain expertise and best workflow practices in AR. As you evaluate your outsourced partner, make sure they are dedicated to measure aforementioned metrics to analyze your organizational performance and implement the best possible measure to recover your aged AR.
