Finance directors at hospitals and other care facilities may be hard-pressed to give their current collections model an overhaul. Sometimes, the best way to get started is to identify some areas of focus to get the ball rolling and make positive strides toward better operations. This can save facilities money and time to upgrade existing systems of management. On the Healthcare Finance blog, Kevin Fuller suggested four key areas to reduce the cost of collections at hospitals: staffing, technology, integration and automation.
Staffing. Hospitals with antiquated collections systems may employ too many staff members for a department to run smoothly. This leads to unnecessary costs, a complicated distribution of labor and other inefficiencies. By reducing staff members, the key team members you retain can focus on aspects of collections like customer service.
Technology. The amount that hospitals currently spend on staffing may be redistributed to invest in new technology, which can take offline processes online and provide better solutions for collections.
Integration. "Implementing a cost-effective clearinghouse can help hospitals connect with payers and submit claims faster and receive quicker responses," writes Fuller. "That means they are paid faster and costly claim processes evaporate."
Automation. Too many manual tasks might be slowing your collections administrators down. Leveraging technology and integration to yield automated tasks can allow administrators to focus on the human side of collections and not just bureaucracy. This can help eliminate painstaking forms and data entry.
When care facilities make the decision to outsource receivables management, they're able to re-allocate resources to provide quality service and optimal efficiency to patients. Contact Professional Medical Services today to learn more about our solutions for hospitals, private practices and other medical offices.