09 Aug What is Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management & How Does It Work?
Revenue Cycle Management Healthcare Guide: What Is It & How Does It Work?
Healthcare revenue cycle management is the process of managing the entire financial aspect of a healthcare organization. This includes billing, coding, and collections. If you are new to revenue cycle management, or if you have been doing it for a while but need some help with your processes, here is an overview of what it entails and how it works.
Revenue cycle management (RCM) is a process for the healthcare industry that directly impacts their financial health. Revenue cycle management services can help improve billing and coding accuracy, while also reducing denials, appeals, and follow-up work.
In this informative guide, we’ll discuss the benefits of outsourcing your medical billing operations in Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, Wyoming and other states. We’ll also outline some common questions about the process and provide resources for those who want to learn more about it.
What is revenue cycle management in healthcare?
In order to be successful, a healthcare organization must process claims in a timely manner and ensure that patients are aware of what they owe and when they need to pay for services rendered. The goal of RCM is to increase patient collections, reduce bad debt, and improve patient satisfaction by reducing wait times and improving access to care.
Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) is the practice of managing an organization’s entire revenue cycle to ensure efficient and accurate claims processing. RCM can be applied at every level of an organization—from hospitals and clinics to physicians’ offices and individual providers.
Reimbursement is the most important part of revenue cycle management. In fact, it’s so important that it makes up about half of a hospital’s operating revenue. Reimbursement is the process by which a hospital or other healthcare provider receives payment for services it provides to patients. It’s also called “claims processing,” and includes submitting claims to insurance companies for reimbursement. Reimbursement is the process by which a hospital or other healthcare provider receives payment for services it provides to patients. It’s also called “claims processing,” and it includes submitting claims to insurance companies for reimbursement.
But what does reimbursement mean?
Reimbursement is the process by which a hospital, practice, or clinic receives payment from a third-party payer for services provided to patients. In the United States, reimbursement is done through a complex network of private insurance companies and government agencies.
Simply put, it means getting paid for providing healthcare services. When you get sick and go to the doctor, you pay for your visit (or more likely your insurance pays). The doctor then bills your insurance company for that service. The payer—either a private insurer or a government program like Medicare or Medicaid—then reimburses the doctor for their services based on a negotiated rate or markup on top of what they charge individual patients.
Denials management, appeals, and appeals follow-up RAC workflows
Denials management and appeals workflows are crucial to revenue cycle management in healthcare. Denials occur when your patient doesn’t qualify for the service or benefit you’ve requested. This can happen for a variety of reasons.
For example, the patient may have a pre-existing condition that makes them ineligible for coverage. Or your patient may not have met their deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. You can read more about what causes denials here.
The appeals workflow is used when a provider disagrees with an insurance company’s decision to deny payment and wants additional information or clarification from their payer before accepting the claim as final. This part of the process is also known as “following up on denied claims.”
The following is a list of tasks and workflows related to managing denials management, appeals, and appeals follow-up RAC workflows:
- Managing denied claims: When payers have denied a claim, it is important for providers to understand how the denial was made and any additional information that can be used to support the claim. If applicable, you may have an opportunity to dispute the decision or appeal it.
- Managing appeals: The ability to effectively manage your billing or reimbursement process requires rigor in both data entry as well as adherence to industry standards in patient care (e.g., ICD-10). Inaccurate billing may lead to payment disputes from payers, which could impact cash flow and needlessly delay collections from patients who are waiting for their treatments or services.
- Appeals follow-up RAC workflows: If your organization does not have an established business practice for managing denials or appeals decisions received from payers, there will be no single person responsible for tracking these decisions throughout their entire lifecycle—from initial denial all the way through final resolution. This lack of a formalized process may cause your organization to miss important opportunities, such as identifying the reasons for denials and appealing them. In addition, it could result in delayed resolution and other negative consequences (e.g., increased costs and fewer payments).
Healthcare revenue cycle management is a valuable service for healthcare organizations, because it helps them to improve their financial health and avoid financial risks. This can be achieved by using the right tools, processes and people with specialized knowledge in the field of RCM. Medusind offers end-to-end RCM services to its clients so they can improve their business operations and reduce costs while increasing revenue through better cash flow management.
The value of revenue cycle management services in the healthcare industry is undeniable.
Healthcare organizations can save millions by utilizing RCM services, and they can improve patient satisfaction and care while they do so!
Reimbursement rates are often lower than the cost of providing care, making it necessary for hospitals to find ways to make up the difference. One way hospitals do this is by outsourcing their medical billing operations.
Revenue Cycle Management helps hospitals save money by:
- Reducing administrative costs
- Increasing cash flow through faster reimbursement
- Increasing revenue by ensuring that all claims are processed accurately
- Reducing their bad debt and bad debts recovery costs
- Reducing the number of claims denials and appeals
- Increasing revenue by identifying errors in their billing systems.
- Improving their cash flow by streamlining the revenue cycle process
By ensuring accurate documentation and coding procedures throughout all departments within your organization (including nursing staff), you can ensure that your billing department has accurate information upon which to base its invoices.
By ensuring the medical records department is performing its job properly (including documenting all procedures, diagnoses, and treatments), you can ensure that your billing staff has what it needs to process claims quickly and accurately.
By ensuring that all departments within your organization are complying with all federal guidelines and regulations, you can reduce the risk of audits and fines.
By ensuring that your billing department has access to all the information it needs in order to process claims quickly and accurately, you can reduce the risk of audits, fines and other penalties.
By ensuring that all departments within your organization are complying with federal guidelines and regulations, you can avoid costly fines or sanctions.
How does healthcare revenue cycle management work?
Revenue cycle management is a process for healthcare organizations that directly impacts their financial health. It’s an alternative way to approach financial health and can change the way a healthcare organization thinks of its bottom line, as well as how it approaches operations.
RCM provides a framework for optimizing your revenue cycle performance by integrating your payment processes into one streamlined operation. By automating manual tasks and leveraging technology, you can manage billing and collections more efficiently—and get paid faster!
When a patient comes into your hospital for treatment, that patient’s information is entered into an electronic database. This information is then sent electronically to your insurance provider and/or Medicare. The insurance provider will then send you back a payment for your services. This can take anywhere from three days to two weeks, depending on the insurance company’s policies and how quickly they process claims from different hospitals.
If you don’t have someone on staff who knows how to negotiate with insurance companies, it can be hard to get paid on time or even at all! That’s why outsourcing your billing department can be such a good idea—it allows you to focus on treating patients while someone else handles all the paperwork!
Medusind Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Services
When you’re running a medical practice, it can be difficult to keep track of every single detail of your billing process.
You’re busy enough keeping up with patient care and ensuring that you have the best equipment, staff, and supplies possible. That’s why it makes sense to outsource your billing services—especially if you’re a small business or startup.
A good medical billing company will take care of everything from sending bills to insurance companies to collecting payments from patients and insurance companies. In short, they will do all the tedious work for you, so that you can focus on what’s important: taking care of your patients.
Medusind can help your healthcare organization reduce costs, and improve cash flow, patient satisfaction, and outcomes. Medusind works with you to identify areas within each of these categories that are ripe for improvement. We then work with you to develop a plan that will allow you to make changes in an economical way.
Our team of experts has the knowledge and experience necessary to help your organization achieve its goals by developing processes, procedures, systems and guidelines that lead to more efficient use of resources including time, money, equipment and staff. Contact us today!
