John Andrews
To compete in an increasingly consumer-centric business environment, healthcare providers must develop pricing and billing matrices that explain in detail the type of services rendered and the assigned amounts.
Hard numbers for return on investment in health IT aren't always measurable, at least in a direct way. Instead, healthcare organizations need to look at both "hard" and "soft" savings when considering a system's ROI.
The next year will be a busy one for all involved in healthcare finance, between handling the influx of patients newly insured under the Affordable Care Act, the ICD-10 coding launch on Oct. 1, the continued proliferation of RAC audits and a variety of Medicare regulations.
There have been many ideas proposed as solutions for reducing costly hospital readmissions, but one concept that hasn't gotten much attention over the years is patient empowerment.
The concept of revenue integrity holds contrasting-but-compatible views on the same subject: One lens is a micro view of the little details while the other lens is a macro view of the landscape. Together, they form a panoramic picture showing an end-to-end revenue cycle with all the pixilated points along the way. At least that is the financial community's vision of it.
From intake to the back end, healthcare providers need a revenue cycle management system that will provide a seamless workflow for each episode of care. From the moment a patient registers in the facility, it is imperative that the correct information follow along each point of care so that accurate billing information can be processed and sent, RCM vendors say.
Healthcare ventures outside the hospital walls appear to be the favored target of investors looking for new opportunities, financial specialists say. Driving that interest is a vision of community-based care sites through accountable care organizations, healthcare reform, evolving private pay models and an industry-wide initiative to bring down costs.
Cost cutting is no longer a laudable aspiration in healthcare facilities - it is a way of life. At the center of this effort is the materials manager (MM) and it can be an unenviable position to occupy. One might even say MMs are between and a rock and hard place when it comes to their role in cost containment.
Business intelligence is finding myriad ways to improve the healthcare organization's bottom line, whether it's through clinical improvement, greater operational efficiencies or enhanced revenue cycle functionality, system designers say.
After two decades of dealing with a chronic labor shortage, healthcare has reached a crossroads – while a tight job market has produced plenty of applicants, finding and attracting top talent still remains a challenge, employment analysts say.