Billing and Collections
A Mississippi health system and three hospitals in Texas, Indiana and Alabama are illustrating how hospitals can thrive in a tough economic environment. The facilities recently won awards for their leadership in initiatives to improve financial sustainability and achieve significant financial performance improvements.
Although there are some indications of a possible lull, hospital systems are still buying up private physician practices at a high rate. With that come concerns about maintaining the revenue cycle during transition, but there are steps hospitals can take to smooth the process.
Medicare announced Friday that it was revising rules intended to prevent the agency from paying twice for the same prescriptions for seniors receiving hospice care. The drug categories in question were identified in a 2012 investigation by the HHS inspector general.
Health costs will accelerate next year, but changes in how people buy care will help keep them from attaining the speed of several years ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers says in a new report.
Communicating effectively with patients about their financial responsibility means hospitals and health systems get paid. Here are some best practices to achieve success.
As providers continue adjusting to the reimbursement changes wrought by the Affordable Care Act, it appears increasingly likely that hospitals will place more emphasis on collecting payments at the point of service.
The American Hospital Association is asking federal Medicare leaders to stem the practice of using sample hospital audit data to extrapolate overpayments eligible for recovery. The lack of clarity regarding standards for short patient stays has clouded the issue.
The federal government and a number of hospitals may want to transition to a new Medicare reimbursement model. But there are still billions of dollars in disputed fee-for-service claims waiting to be settled, sowing animosity between health systems and the feds.
A new interpretation of a 40-year-old law could offer healthcare providers more options for appealing payer recoupments or preventing them altogether.
The Affordable Care Act has created some new realities for hospitals when it comes to billing and collecting from patients. Hospitals are adjusting by instituting a variety of processes.