Hospitals and health systems seeking to make their revenue cycle management process more effective should strive to retain existing patients, according to Brian Paradis, senior partner with Tampa, Fla.-based healthcare strategic advisory firm CSuite Solutions.
Mr. Paradis shared the following tip with Becker's Hospital Review.
"To optimize their revenue cycles, hospitals and health systems need to start looking at RCM as less of a process, and more of a strategic asset. A great place to start is the development of referral retention strategies. With many health systems focusing their energy and resources on attracting new patients to their hospital, or other services within their networks, a critical opportunity is missed. In reality, these health systems are inadvertently missing out on the potential business that could come from existing patients that are already seeking treatment within their walls. This might be a result of health systems not operating the services that these specific patients need, not fully understanding how or where to refer existing patients, the overall difficulty of facilitating a handoff, or even the lack of a follow-up or tracking mechanism to measure success. Without a process in place to mainstream referrals within the revenue cycle, health systems will essentially hemorrhage unrealized dollars and services leaving the network, which will become that much more critical with the transition to value-based care."
Read more about improving RCM here.
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.