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Enhancing the Abilities of Healthcare SectorThis can be called the first step toward revenue cycle management in healthcare. It determines the extent of coverage provided by health plans and the number of money patients will need to pay upfront. OSP can design and build custom healthcare software solutions for insurance verification. Using this, staffers at medical centers can rapidly determine if a patient is eligible for certain care services and how much the health plan would cover. This process will take a minute or two and reduce patient wait times.
A software solution would do this faster and more accurately, preventing the need for staffers to do it manually. Additionally, since it is largely automated, there are bound to be fewer mistakes that might result in denial later.
This is one of the initial steps involved in the entire revenue cycle management process at healthcare organizations. Pre-authorization is when an insurance payer company decides if a certain prescription, treatment, service, procedure, or medical equipment is necessary. Patient pre-authorization is waived off only in case of emergencies. OSP can develop revenue cycle management solutions with pre-authorization modules to reduce manual work, prevent redundancy, and shorten the overall period of pre-authorization.
This goes a long way in reducing wait times for patients who need important treatments and enables providers to focus their efforts better. When used in cohesion with patient engagement systems, a hospital can notify patients immediately of authorizations.
Medical coding is translating clinical visits into a set of established medical codes. This is done to maintain medical records and fill out claims detailing the services provided by the hospital or clinic. OSP can develop automated healthcare solutions for hospital revenue cycle management, including a medical coding function. Since it largely automates the process, our solution can carry out coding faster and more accurately. Since automation limits human intervention, there are fewer errors.
Coding errors are among the main reasons for rejections and denials of claims. Elimination of errors boosts revenue cycles for providers. Integration with practice management solutions will enable small practices to streamline RCM workflows.
There are many reasons for the denial and rejection of claims. Different payer companies would have differing conditions, and if claims don’t match those, it could result in partial reimbursement or denials. OSP can develop hospital revenue cycle management solutions with a function to assess claims before they are sent to payers. This highlights any irregularities or errors in the claims, allowing the medical staff to make corrections. Claims analytics is one of the most effective tools to prevent denials and improve the efficiency of hospital revenue cycle management.
Integration with existing medical systems and rapid electronic data exchange enables large hospitals to leverage the benefits of claims analytics. This would go a long way in boosting revenues and improving overall efficiency.
One of the important underlying aspects of hospital revenue cycle management is the ability to track patients’ medical information across the care journey. This includes diagnoses, test results, scans, prescriptions, clinical interactions, etc. This provides the basis for filling out and submitting claims to payers and tracking the same. OSP can include healthcare management functions within the custom revenue cycle management solutions that we would develop.
This will enable the non-clinical staff at medical centers to capture all the healthcare data throughout the care process for patients. Furthermore, this would also be beneficial where integrated healthcare solutions are in use and multiple physicians coordinate treatments.
Denial of claims is one of the most common reasons for a reduction in provider revenues. There can be a broad range of reasons for claims getting denied. However, an analysis of denials over some time sheds light on why they happened. OSP can build a tailored hospital revenue cycle management platform with a feature for denial management incorporated within. This will assess all the denied claims and provide insights into recurring patterns.
Providers and other staff would know which part of their workflow needs correction and can go about implementing changes. Knowing the reasons for denials for each payer is an important aspect of revenue cycle management operations. The presence of medical informatics can also boost the efficacy of denial management operations.
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We reached out to OSP to provide an estimate on a technology solution we were interested in developing. From the initial conversation, the team was professional, courteous, and thorough. We were able to make a quick decision to move forward with OSP because we were confident that our requirements were accurately captured and the development deliverables and associated costs were clear.
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Hospital revenue cycle management (RCM) consists of all the processes hospitals use to manage their revenues and finances. It starts from tracking patient care, from registration and appointment scheduling to final payments.
Healthcare organizations need RCM to have healthy revenues. Good RCM processes lower the number of claim denials and accounts receivables. Moreover, using software further streamlines all activities in RCM and lowers the overhead involved, further improving revenues. This is why healthcare organizations need RCM.
Scheduling
This is when patients book appointments, and physicians see their patients in a systematic order.
Patient Registration and Eligibility Verification
This follows appointment scheduling, where the staff records patient information, including demographic and insurance coverage. It is to verify if the patient’s health plans cover the medical services about to be provided.
Upfront Patient collections
This is where patients pay their part of the medical bills before their insurance plan kicks in
Claims Management
Medical claims consist of all the healthcare services provided to patients and coded as per regulations. Insurance payers then reimburse providers based on these claims. Activities surrounding claims are vital for revenue cycle management.
Medical Billing and Patient Collections
After settling claims, the medical staff sends the bill for the balance amount to the patients.
Billing Errors
These are human-made mistakes and cost the healthcare industry billions of dollars annually.
Lack of Training and Resources
Many medical organizations need help finding competent staff to handle the RCM process flow.
Errors in Claims Processes
Claim denials are a major reason for the loss of revenue for providers. Mistakes in claims are a big reason for this.
Healthcare Technology
With increasing tech adoption across the board in the healthcare industry, interoperability problems are not uncommon. Organizations of all sizes have faced growing problems operating newer technologies.
Healthcare revenue cycle management is an elaborate process that involves multiple steps and lots of data entry. It begins right from the appointment scheduling and ends when the final payments are made. The processes in between include insurance verification, charge capture, medical coding, and claims management.
Each of these steps requires careful data entry about the patients and the medical services they were provided. Using revenue cycle management solutions streamlines the entire process flow by digitizing everything and even introducing automation. As a result, a relatively small staff can do more work efficiently with little to no mistakes. This results in better revenues in the long run.
Data analytics can process large amounts of information quickly to produce actionable insights. When it comes to hospital revenue management, there is plenty of operational data to assess. This includes types of health plans, reimbursements, denials, accounts receivables, etc.
Using data analytics helps providers to know the main reasons for claim denials, delays in reimbursements, reliability of insurance plans, reasons for accounts receivables, and so on. These are some of the main pain points that every hospital struggles with. Knowing the reasons for these helps them address the causes. Manual assessment of large quantities of operational data for hospitals is time-consuming and highly inefficient.
But data analytics helps sift through large quantities of data in minutes or hours more efficiently. This generates useful insights that help hospitals make informed decisions to improve operational efficiency and revenues.
Revenue cycle management in hospitals ensures faster prior authorizations and insurance eligibility for patients. These lowers wait times for important procedures and ensures that patients won’t be surprised by unexpected costs. This helps patients know exactly how much they will be paying and how long they will have to wait to receive care.
Software solutions for hospital revenue cycle management streamlines and accelerates eligibility verification and prior authorization. By integrating a medical records solution with the RCM platform, the front-office staff can verify a patient’s eligibility in minutes. This lets the hospital know if a person is eligible for services and prevents claim denials.
Revenue cycle management solutions also accelerate prior authorizations through automation. The front-office staff need not get on the phone with payers. The authorization can be done in a few minutes to some hours through the software. This results in lower wait times for people who may need urgent surgery.
