As more hospitals, clinics, private practices and other medical centers reevaluate the importance of revenue cycle management (RCM), key roles in implementing finance strategy have also been reappraised. One byproduct of this assessment is a spike in salaries for men and women who fill those roles. According to recent data from Payscale, annual income for RCM directors spans between $63,018 and $142,837, with a median of $97,558.
Because the pay grade of these administrators is so high, placing the right professionals in those positions is critical to return-on-investment. David Lane, a healthcare revenue cycle management consultant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, describes the ideal RCM director as a "jack of all trades."
"You have to be a gatekeeper, to be able to provide knowledge or get answers for senior management," he told Healthcare Finance News. "You have to watch trends, be a good communicator, a good mentor, provide tools and resources to your staff, and be able to identify obstacles to their productivity and improvement and be able to remove those."
If your facility is currently overwhelmed by a high volume of claims and limited manpower to address them, one solution may be rethinking your investment in human resources. This might require restructuring or reorganizing finance departments to emphasize leadership. An internal review can help identify deficiencies in current operations so that they can be addressed moving forward.
One of the best ways to improve RCM at health care facilities is to outsource receivables management. This allows individual administrators to focus on high-priority collections and reduce a backlog of outstanding cases. Contact Professional Medical Services today to learn more about our solutions to optimize RCM at your medical facility.
