It’s the start of a new year, and healthcare administrators are once again tasked with deciding how to use their facility’s valuable time and resources for maximum benefit.
Which priorities are most pressing for your facility in the coming year? What new technologies or tools can help you move toward your goals? If you’re striving to make your Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) more streamlined and efficient in 2020, here are three important coding and billing trends to pay attention to.
Trend: Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management
A growing number of healthcare facilities are outsourcing their RCM to lower expenses, ease the burden for in-house administrative staff, and speed up collections & cash flow. On a global scale, the medical billing outsourcing market size is projected to reach $19.7 billion by 2026, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 11.8%.
Why It’s Important
Medical coding and billing are becoming increasingly complex, and outsourcing the process can reduce errors, limit denials, and lead to faster payments. Outsourcing RCM to a dedicated team of experts also allows your employees to focus on other responsibilities.
Trend: End-to-End Solutions
When the revenue cycle is segmented into different areas, it’s challenging to achieve transparency and manage the entire process effectively. Healthcare facilities are now seeing value in using end-to-end solutions that offer complete visibility into the revenue cycle, from transcription & chart management to coding & billing.
Why It’s Important
Revenue Cycle Management is cumbersome and inefficient when it is segmented into tools that don’t communicate well with each other. To address problems and improve processes, you need full visibility into your revenue cycle. RCM tools that are designed to capture data, catch mistakes, and track analytics from start to finish will result in better outcomes for your facility.
Trend: Improving Performance with Analytics
Successful RCM should go beyond simple coding and billing functions. It must compare your facility against national metrics and help you exceed best practices. The right RCM solutions will also track key analytics and provides critical insights for benchmarking, compliance, trending and reporting.
Why It’s Important
Robust analytics give you insightful and actionable information. Do you know how many days in A/R your facility is averaging? What percentage of your claims result in denials? What is your current adjusted collection rate? By tracking and evaluating this data, you will gain a clear picture of the improvements you want to make in your RCM – and the steps you need to take to reach your objectives.