The goal of one of this year’s HFMA ANI sessions is to “get practices to think a little bit differently when trying to reduce costs.”
Session A05, “Five steps to reducing administrative costs in group practices,” will be a panel discussion held at the Institute on Monday, June 21, at The Sands Expo Center and Venetian/Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas.
“The five steps are a systematic way to reduce admin cost within an organization, but also cover partnering with the other pieces to the puzzle, including vendors and health insurance carriers, to reduce costs,” said Chris Kean, chief operating officer of the San Antonio Orthopaedic Group and one of the session’s panelists.
Attendees should expect to learn how to implement an action plan for a technology-based multi-payer system approach to physician group reimbursement that streamlines workflow, sample data from the process and use tools for analyzing cost savings.
“I really want (attendees) to embrace technology – look past the manual way that we do things,” said Kean.
According to the HFMA, attendees will learn to use multi-payer tools to manage information, technology to automate workflow and improve data quality and data to improve claim processes. They’ll also learn how to train clinical and administrative staff to improve performance efficiency.
“There are two sides of the equation. There’s revenue and there’s expenses,” said Kean.
One can only control the expense side, so as a practice manager the most important thing one can do to survive in the healthcare delivery system is to streamline the system and drive down costs, she said.
Joining Kean on the panel are Nancy G. Brown, senior vice president of business development and government affairs for athenahealth; Brian Kagel, in principal marketing intelligence for Availity; and William Banks, director of consulting at St. Elizabeth Healthcare.
The session is recommended for financial leaders who manage physician practice reimbursement and/or payment in any size practice.