The Bethesda Healthcare System, a not-for-profit, two-hospital system in Boynton Beach, Fla., intends to redesign its revenue cycle processes, adding a fully automated financial and clinical patient record.
The health system has hired the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based healthcare IT firm Ingenix to manage comprehensive revenue cycle functions for its hospital and outpatient facilities, which include the 401-bed Bethesda Memorial Hospital and the 39-bed Bethesda Heart Hospital. An 80-bed community hospital is scheduled to open in 2013.
Ingenix will assume responsibility for administrative revenue cycle operations. The health system will implement the company's Electronic Financial Record technology, computer-assisted coding and electronic health records solutions, patient financial counseling services and emergency department information systems and use Ingenix's medical necessity consulting services.
Ingenix will also provide full-time onsite staff to manage revenue-related functions, including scheduling, patient registration, health information management, patient financial services, decision support and managed care contracting, at Bethesda Healthcare.
“As healthcare delivery systems integrate to increase the coordination of patient care, we need a comprehensive approach to financial operations,” said Joanne Aquilina, vice president of finance and CFO of the Bethesda Healthcare System.
Aquilina said the automation and integration of Bethesda's revenue cycle operation would minimize the time spent on administration and allow the health system to achieve faster claims reimbursement and reduce administrative costs.