The business of providing healthcare is more complex than ever—which means the business of managing revenue cycle processes is, too. Whether you are an administrator of established home health agency or hospice facility or a new visiting physician or nurse practitioner starting their own practice, you may be feeling overwhelmed at the time, money and effort it takes to keep up to date with your billing, follow up on claim denials and the other tasks involved in ensuring your revenue stream remains healthy.
If this is the case, know that you are not alone. Thousands of healthcare entities and providers are outsourcing their medical billing and revenue cycle management because they have found it makes the most sense for their businesses. Here’s why:
Specialized skills are needed to create billing cost-efficiency.
Medical billing and revenue recovery are no longer functions that can be done “in between” other tasks by individuals who are not specifically trained. Today, an educated professional whose primary expertise is in medical billing and revenue recovery is needed. This is because of the increased complexity and “churn” of healthcare regulations, payors and administrative burden which have transformed revenue cycle management from a simple task into a key healthcare profession. Without using specialized staff, statistics show that the costs of billing errors and denied claims grows dramatically.
Outsourcing billing and revenue cycle management improves cash flow.
If medical billing and revenue cycle management are not part of your professional wheelhouse—spending time on them means that you are taking away time from the revenue-generating activities that are central to your business—and not handling this function very efficiently. This situation can stifle cash flow due to a slow and unpredictable billing cycle. It can also take your focus and time away from patient care. By freeing you to focus on high-value, patient-centric activities and letting an efficient and professional company take care of revenue cycle management, your bottom line will also improve.
Professional revenue cycle management creates more profitable entities.
In order to avoid lost revenue due to “timely filing” requirements, claims must be made on a regularly scheduled basis. An outsourced billing company will keep your billing cycle running smoothly so that all completed claims are submitted and paid on a regular schedule, avoiding revenue losses to support a better bottom line.
The costs of compliance are reduced.
Regulations related to billing are constantly changing, which means more time has to be devoted to keeping abreast of them and educating staff on them unless you outsource. For the reasons stated above, this time is better spent on revenue-generating, patient care activities. A professional billing company provides both the knowledge and the services to keep your agency or practice up to date and in compliance with all billing regulations.
Overhead is reduced.
In addition to the cost of onboarding and training billing staff (a significant expense in terms of salary and benefits), technology is another major expense attached to maintain in-house billing and revenue recovery. Outsourcing this function eliminates your need to invest in and maintain the specialized software necessary to for billing and revenue recovery management.
Today’s healthcare environment is challenging for many reasons. Ensuring your agency or practice remains viable in terms of profitability relies on expert medical billing strategic revenue management. Outsourcing these functions to a trusted partner like Dominion Revenue Solutions clearly makes sense, as outlined above. Learn more by contacting us for a revenue cycle management plan customized for your healthcare entity.
