If you look around online you will find a lot of information about how to manage the revenue cycle in your medical practice. While revenue cycle management is definitely important, and a foundational part of running a successful clinic, we think you should set your sights a little bit higher in trying to optimize revenue cycle. Maximizing your collections as a percentage of your total billings, eliminating denied and rejected claims, and increasing your ability to collect on patient balances can dramatically change your total revenue without adding any more patient appointments to your schedule.
In this three-part blog series, we’re going to discuss some best practices for optimizing your RCM for the most efficient and profitable practice possible.
Best Practice: Build an Interoperable System
Revenue cycle is just one part of a much larger healthcare technology ecosystem. While it’s a huge part in terms of your ability to collect revenue, it’s definitely not the only place where you need to have optimized technology. Creating an interoperable system that shares patient, clinical, and operational data at every point can dramatically increase your revenue collections. Without interoperability, you and your staff are forced to create manual processes to transfer information between systems.
Managing RCM: one of the biggest challenges is sorting through the myriad of solutions that say they offer some level of interoperability when the reality is they just have at patchwork of hastily-built software APIs that try to connect disparate systems. At the end of the day these systems usually still require quite a bit of manual work, or workarounds that your staff finds to share information between systems that weren’t built for interoperability—both of which are inefficient and can open the door to errors.
Optimizing RCM: the best way to optimize your entire RCM is to start with a system that is already completely interoperable. For a small practice, this might seem daunting if you’re thinking you have to buy the biggest and most expensive system just to get all the bells and whistles. Instead, find a software vendor (like AdvancedMD) that has a modular system that you can build on over time. Begin with the basics, like an EHR, scheduling, practice management software, and medical coding and billing software. Then add on with a patient portal, appointment reminders, reputation management, telemedicine, and more as needed.
In parts two and three we’ll discuss additional best practices for optimizing RCM. In the meantime, check out AdvancedMD to schedule a demo of our interoperable clinic software solutions.
