For all healthcare providers and leaders, there is one ultimate purpose and focus of their work: to provide the very highest quality in patient care and produce the best patient outcomes. There can be a tension created between this goal and the time and energy required to deal with the challenges of maintaining a functioning revenue cycle process.
Staff in the Revenue Cycle department often find themselves overwhelmed and under consistent pressure with long wait times when dealing with payors, unproductive processes for financial counseling and customer services. On top of this, they must find time to stay on top of the ever-developing regulations and changes in technology. All of which can lead to major disruptions and delays in workflows.
For these reasons, many healthcare leaders are beginning to see the value and sense in revenue cycle outsourcing management. By partnering with another organization that specializes in these tasks, healthcare systems can greatly benefit. Drawing on the resources, and knowledge of experts in this can remove the pressure on healthcare leaders to manage operations.
There has been a steady rise in the number of organizations that are outsourcing revenue cycle functions. According to Black Book Market Research, this number has grown by 48 percent since 2015, and 94 percent of hospital leaders are considering or vetting outsourcing companies. In the current economic and labor market, making these changes is becoming essential to survive and thrive. There are many reasons why a healthcare organization might make the choice to partner with an outsource partner to support the management of revenue cycle work:
- They may be facing into back-logs and inefficiencies in their current in-house process leading to denials and revenue leakage.
- They wish to refocus their time and energy on providing quality care and the patient experience.
- They notice their staff are overwhelmed and under pressure resulting in no time to develop and grow.
RelateCare provide a range of revenue cycle outsourcing functions for a number of leading health systems. As a trusted outsourcing partner, we understand how the healthcare system works, from a patient access perspective to the details of all HIPAA requirements. We pride ourselves on collaboration and communication and have the expertise in the relevant systems to provide value straight away.
Healthcare organizations should consider outsourcing companies that offer:
- Access to revenue cycle technology (phone system, learning management system, robotic process automation.
- Proven ability and track record to handle heavy healthcare revenue cycle workflows and avoid denials.
- Ability to scale operations and adapt to changes seamlessly.
- Lower overall cost structure (while achieving similar or superior performance).
Over the past decade RelateCare has worked with health systems as they have reduced the cost of appointment scheduling contacts by 28%, have increased template utilization by 18% and have favorably moved the dials on denials and candidates for bill.
