Billing and Collections
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.
One of the worst failures of the Affordable Care Act is that, even with subsidies, the premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are unaffordable for far too many people. Unfortunately, a new proposal for catastrophic plans with very high deductibles would make accessing healthcare truly unaffordable for even more people.
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.
One of the major arguments against the ICD-10 transition are the financial costs to medical practices. Sure, there are accusations of bureaucratic overreach, but the anti-ICD-10 argument is primarily financial. So why not offer providers an incentive?
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.
Determining insurance eligibility and estimating patient payment are two of the most overlooked steps in patient engagement and the revenue cycle process. Yet, they're also two of the simplest things a provider can do to maximize revenue and profitability.
The potential exists for an unprecedented slowdown in receivables turnover as the Affordable Care Act marches toward full implementation. The importance of having a plan in place to mitigate this problem cannot be overstated.