Benchmarked Comparisons for Optimal Healthcare Competitiveness – Part 1

Imagine cementing your organization at the highest tier of medical facilities, maybe something like the top 20 hospitals in the nation. Think about how your staff would respond if you achieved that honor. Your essential workers might feel rewarded, perhaps even grateful, and relieved. And your consumers, the surrounding community, and others who value excellence, would seek out your services.

Comparisons stand as your saving grace. From this day forward, you could put to work verified industry standards to center your organization within the essential tenets of revenue growth and expansion. Your hospital, lab, physician’s office, surgery, or imaging center, among other healthcare businesses, could rest comfortably in profitability instead of insurmountable debt, or somewhere in the middle.

Benchmark Your Key Assessment Areas

Increase revenue by perfecting fundamental processes. Measure the steps, time, and results of your work activities against those of organizations similar to yours. You may find out that you’re not doing the best that you can with the resources you have. Overall, the metrics may show that you don’t have sufficient resources, human or otherwise.

So, first things first, get an evaluation from an expert. If you don’t already have the most current assessment methods, then hire a company that does. Conduct benchmark assessments with a Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) provider because their business depends on your success.

With the data you’ll receive from your provider’s analysis, you can upgrade the systems you have in place. These key assessment areas function as the basis for frontend enhancements, mid-cycle improvements, and backend consistent gains. One step at a time, you can take advantage of every scalable service your RCM provider offers to ensure that your business won’t fall behind the competition.

If you want to stand out among your competitors, you’ll need the proper foundation. To make sure you grow upright, secure streamlined revenue from the beginning. You’re not starting over but taking a second look at how you can appear more relevant in the healthcare industry.

The following list stands as the key areas RCM businesses, like HealthRecon Connect, may assess to ensure that your mission withstands disruptions in the market.

• Contracts & Reimbursements: You have to develop solid relationships with insurance payers and patients. HealthRecon, therefore, will make sure you’re benefitting from complementary contracts, ones that encourage the kind of care you offer the public while enabling the reimbursements you’ll need to drive innovative medical decisions.

• Appointment Scheduling In the same way you depend on payers, how you deliver scheduling should drive accessibility for your patients. The technology, timeliness, and ease related to making appointments should work together seamlessly, giving patients some control in resolving their healthcare needs.

• Procedure Mix + Payer Distribution + Coding + Claim Submission: Your evaluation should reveal if you’re achieving a first pass resolution or claim rate of 90% or better. What’s more, the data should reflect if the procedures add up to your pricing calculations. Your submissions should confirm low costs but high gains through appropriate but optimal treatment, charges, monitoring and coding choices.

• Patient Billing + Payment and Denial Posting + Collections Follow-up + Revenue: Your pricing decisions should appear transparent along with your billing, collections, and posting methods. Benchmark assessments determine if your billing system allows patients/consumers to make hassle-free payments, consistently.

• Denials Management + Adjustments / Bad Debt:  From your denial issues, adjustments, and bad debt you’ll gain insight on what significant changes you need to make within your revenue cycle. For example, if your denials show a high rate of coding rejections, then you can work with HRC to understand how far off the mark you’ve fallen. You could then center your everyday activities around strategic revenue cycle management, overcoming unfruitful business practices.

Begin to Achieve Your Revenue Potential

Your business hasn’t reached its full revenue potential. If you partner with HealthRecon Connect (HRC), however, you’ll always make room for more growth. Start with benchmark assessments and then move on to HRC’s 90-day action plan and 30-minute phone consultation. Read part 2 of RCM benchmarks for more information on achieving optimal competitiveness in a chaotic market or contact us today to begin your assessment.