Improve RCM through technology
While advances in medical procedures and technology for patient care are at the forefront of innovation, technology and automation for revenue cycle management (RCM) and back-end processes remain mostly siloed and without substantial process improvement.
Healthcare organizations can be slow to adapt to change and departments, as well as the associated technology, remain segregated in silos. With a recent Becker’s Hospital Review article indicating more than 60% of providers plan to outsource their RCM, process improvement and technology improvements are critical for success in that endeavor.
Tactics to improve RCM using technology
Over the next few months, JTS Health Partners would like to tackle the conversation and discuss approaches to improving the RCM through technology specifically for smaller healthcare organizations. First, we must address the importance of true processes improvement. Without changing the processes, layering on new technologies or more people is simply going to speed the time arriving at the same inefficiencies and deepening the gap between the already siloed organizations.
60% of providers plan to outsource their RCM in 2023.
Processes for revenue cycle improvement
Processes for improving revenue cycle include patient registration, clinical documentation, coding, billing and account management. Each area of the process can be complex and detailed. While the expertise in revenue cycle is deep, there has been little process improvement in the overall organization for many years. Additional complexity is added with regulations and other outside forces increasing demands in each area of RCM. Identifying these revenue silo gaps is the largest bottleneck to cash flow and where the hard work begins. Keeping departments physically and technologically separated may also lead to a disconnect from the overall company’s goals. Identifying gaps utilizing process improvement and applying technical insights will increase the probability of successful financial performance.
Revenue cycle improvement series
Our blog series on RCM technologies will expand into discussions of:
- “Building a process team to utilize technology,”
- “Utilizing technical insights to identify gaps and bottlenecks,” and
- “Measuring RCM metrics alongside process & technology improvements critical to reduce time to revenue capture.”
Our goal in this series is to support healthcare organizations', hospitals' and providers' efforts to identify gaps and break down barriers between revenue cycle management organizational silos and improve RCM through technology.