For the healthcare industry, revenue cycle management is the lifeblood. This area in healthcare operations helps hospitals, home healthcare facilities, laboratory and diagnostic centers, and other medical service providers collect payment from patients. However, you must also keep in mind that RCM can be too complex. It requires manual intensive checking and processing of data to track revenue from the initial delivery of healthcare to patient recovery.
In the past recent years, there have been improvements in RCM processes and workflow. In addition, technological advancement in the arena of artificial intelligence, automation, and outsourcing has helped make a difference.
Industry trends and figures
With RCM taking care of the billing and payment processes, providers have continued access to the financial resources necessary to maintain healthcare systems and their services. When considering the significance of revenue cycle management for your operations, it would be best to stay updated on industry trends, accelerate innovation and respond to the most pressing challenges in healthcare.
To achieve these goals, the service provider can take advantage of new healthcare solutions that are more attuned to the needs of patients. Meanwhile, it enables you to deliver healthcare that meets industry standards.
Here, we'll focus on the latest trends in healthcare and revenue cycle management. You can also focus on how outsourcing can help healthcare businesses keep up with the evolving industry and thrive in the future.
AI to drive data analytics in healthcare
The recent COVID-19 had the hardest hit. Moreover, health systems were not fully prepared to address the urgent need that hospital care needed when increasing the number of COVID-19 patients. Patients waiting for health services require elective procedures.
To ease the situation, health care firms can leverage artificial intelligence in their data analytics. For example, it is revealed that one-half of healthcare providers had used AI tools for contact tracing, bed capacity management, physician allocation, staff-to-patient ratio, and several other use cases to help them manage COVID-19 and administer care to the public.
Remember, working with data is highly sensitive work. Moreover, it requires a great deal of skill. With professional outsourcing services, you can build a team of healthcare informatics experts who can efficiently integrate data into healthcare practices.
Increased adoption of telehealth
Telehealth refers to the delivery of healthcare services. While telehealth has been there since the late 1960s, its adoption rose during COVID-19 lockdown periods. Besides helping patients receive the care they need in the safety and comfort of their homes, telehealth proves to be a profitable revenue stream for providers.
In the past, when physicians did not know how to bill teleconferencing patients, it was possible to bill patients depending on the type and extent of work their doctor did for them. However, Telehealth's sticking point as an emerging trend is the constantly changing policies on billing and reimbursement.
Healthcare practitioners simply do not have the time and energy to spend on administrative tasks. This can be solved when you outsource RCM teams and help to bill telehealth services.
Growing RCM outsourcing demand
Most healthcare firms are now outsourcing RCM. As one of the drivers of the growing market, RCM outsourcing can be advantageous for healthcare businesses. It helps you deal with the cost of caring for the patients. RCM outsourcing partners are in charge of administrative work, including billing and coding claims. In addition, they help ensure that healthcare firms receive payment from member patients of insurance companies.
The outsourcing partner will work on these processes; however, you don't need to worry about the claims being denied due to specific requirements not being met during the patient's treatment. You can now continue to provide quality care and, at the same time, be compensated properly for treating patients and saving their lives.
Robust cybersecurity strategies
You must have understood that data breaches are rampant in the digital landscape. However, none is more vulnerable than the healthcare sector. So it's alarming that you must consider this seriously when tightening the security system. Moreover, it's impossible for you to deliver medical care if there have been security breaches compromising patient records.
Cybersecurity is not merely an added expense but a necessity in the digital age. It helps translate your business revenue. When you invest in a strong IT healthcare system, this enables you to avoid data breaches, and their consequences can damage both the financial state of the business and the lives of people under your care.
Automation for high-volume claims management
Submitting claims to health insurance companies and making follow-ups to collect on those can be frustrating. In addition, the high volume of transactions, including insurance claims, can be a significant roadblock in managing the account receivables.
These challenges can be exceptionally costly. Remember, in the United States; providers spend about $471 billion in billing and insurance-related expenses.
Automation technologies only need to look at those codes or rules and determine an outcome, i.e., whether to approve or deny the claim.
With automation, you get these pressing issues in revenue cycle management out of the way. It allows you to focus more on helping clients while ensuring your company's profits. However, automation is a broad field; you need to work with an outsourcing provider specializing in automating healthcare-related tasks to minimize errors and ensure data integrity.
You can always hire an outsourcing provider to help you with healthcare RCM and IT needs. At Vital Solutions, we have a well-established system that is HIPAA and GDPR compliant to ensure patient data security and prevent a data breach.
High impact trends in revenue cycle management
Quality and sustainable healthcare begin with revenue cycle management. RCM ensures that medical service users get the support they need and that organizations generate revenue for businesses. For the future, the outlook for RCM remains positive as high-impact trends promise innovations necessary to drive more value for patients and healthcare providers.
A provider of healthcare outsourcing services will aim to,
- Excellent operation
- A great, high-performing healthcare team addressing the businesses' needs
- Operational cost savings of up to 70%
- Sense of security and peace of mind
Conclusion
Experts encourage hospital administrators to maintain flexibility in their approaches to revenue cycle management. However, you must be sure that every decision is made with a focus on the patients and meeting them where they are. The pandemic has taught the significance of embracing technologies, leveraging proven partners, and encouraging teams to think outside the box.
