Managing a healthcare facility or practice comes with a long list of tasks on the daily to-do list. Researching opportunities to outsource some of these tasks can be worthwhile. One task that may be worth outsourcing is revenue cycle management, which is particularly time-consuming and challenging for healthcare organizations. There is potential profit to be realized in learning more about the revenue cycle and how outsourcing can be helpful for those in the healthcare industry.
What Is a Revenue Cycle?
The revenue cycle is a financial process used to manage the clinical and administrative functions that relate to identifying responsible payors, processing claims, collecting payments, and ultimately generating revenue. Managing that cycle involves identifying and managing revenue opportunities and collecting payments more efficiently. However, placing these tasks on healthcare workers or business office administrators can overburden their responsibilities and detract from their ability to provide a positive patient experience.
Outsourcing revenue cycle management allows a healthcare organization to partner with a company that specializes in this aspect of the industry. The third-party staff members who handle collections, claims processing, and revenue generation are experts in this side of the healthcare industry, so they focus their efforts on these initiatives. Healthcare staff members can free up their time to provide better care and improve the patient experience.
Benefits of Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management
In addition to freeing up employee time to focus on other tasks, outsourcing revenue cycle management also brings a few other benefits to a health care organization.
Lower Costs
Handling all the internal aspects of revenue cycle management in-house requires an organization to hire many full-time staff members, including those who possess the necessary training and experience to handle pre-registrations, medical billing, coding, communication with insurance companies, and payment collection. The cost of building in-house staff resources to adequately cover these necessary areas of the revenue cycle can be substantial, particularly with salaries and benefits. This is apart from the recent wide-spread staffing difficulties being felt at every level of the healthcare industry.
By partnering with a company that handles revenue cycle management, many of these overhead costs are assumed by the partnering agency, simplifying the cost calculation for the healthcare organization to a negotiated fee, often resulting in a lower costs for these services. Furthermore, with the majority of such partnerships working on a commission fee basis, expenditures for these services are tied to cash being recovered for the healthcare organization.
Timely Reimbursement
Receiving payment for services rendered can take months, making it more difficult for healthcare organizations to operate on a profit. Outsourcing your revenue cycle management tasks, particularly to a partner with a well-developed insurance management division, can shorten the reimbursement timeline, as experts handle all aspects of the organization’s financial processes. By focusing on proper coding, regular billing reviews, and interactions with insurance companies, these outsourced team members can maintain better control over the healthcare organization’s income stream.
Compliance With Legal Regulations
Healthcare organizations that manage everything in-house tend to have elements that fall through the cracks. Maintaining compliance with industry regulations, insurance company policies, and HIPAA privacy laws isn’t something an organization can afford to ignore. A qualified revenue cycle management partner, which has a mature compliance program in place, can help an organization maintain flexibility and adapt to an ever-changing regulatory landscape, ensuring compliance with applicable regulations and avoiding costly fines and penalties.
Revco Solutions is a leading provider of revenue cycle management in the healthcare industry. Their partnerships have included healthcare organizations of all sizes and scopes operating nationwide. Learning about how an organization can benefit from outsourcing this aspect of healthcare management can help leaders determine how to move forward. Learn more at https://revcosolutions.com today!
