One way hospitals can improve revenue cycle performance is by focusing on yield, instead of cash with respect to clinical documentation integrity, according to Ryan O'Hara, chief revenue officer of Flagstaff-based Northern Arizona Healthcare.
To elaborate on this thought, Mr. O'Hara shared an analogy in which net revenue is a dollar and cash is 98 cents.
"It's much easier to move net revenue and just let cash lag behind it," he said. "They're not binary. You still have to do both. But, I think sometimes we forget about moving the dollar, and we're focusing on that two-cent gap. I think we get kind of deduction-focused sometimes."
If you would like to share your RCM best practices, please email Kelly Gooch at kgooch@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in the "RCM tip of the day" series.
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