A revenue cycle management service can help practices achieve good financial health that lays the foundation for quality patient care. But while revenue cycle management helps practices and patients, its capacity to handle responsibilities outside the business office traditionally has been limited. In such cases, revenue cycle management automation can meet the need to ask for, track, and collect revenue — while still ensuring the best care possible for patients.
As technologies advance, a path has emerged for practices to automate tasks to increase revenue, decrease denials, speed up prior authorization and claims, and remove many repetitive clicks that hamper daily operations.
What is automation in Revenue Cycle Management?
Automation is taking a repetitive manual work event and programming the steps so a computer can complete them. Artificial intelligence, meanwhile, is the ability of computers to make decisions and form thoughts themselves, making automation more accessible and faster. Let’s review some best uses for automation in your revenue cycle.
Revenue Cycle Management Automation for Speed and Efficiency Automation speeds up processes for the patient and the provider, improving satisfaction for both. With the faster routing of correspondences, practice staff can serve patients faster and increase the focus on quality care.
Consider the many clicks that go into revenue authorization and claims. Removing clicks inhibiting daily operations can give staff more time to engage with patients. Automation can help manage patient inquiry research and follow-up. With algorithms in place, the process can save time by finding prior authorizations and insurance verification. Automation can improve document quality using a mostly EHR digital system, providing more transparent images and more legible transcriptions.
Cost-Effective
From a cost perspective, practices that employ revenue cycle management automation can save money and increase ROI through fewer full-time equivalent positions. Robotic automation can equate to thousands of hours a month, which correlates to hundreds of thousands of dollars saved.
If your practice has limited resources, large quantities of manual tasks, and a lack of standardization, you can improve your already-working system through revenue cycle management automation. Given the current labor shortage, you can even save expenses on staffing as you reduce the time spent processing each patient.
Avoids Paper chart Process
Automation reduces scanning costs related to paper handling and outside services. In fact, it reduces data entry expenses and helps lessen or even eliminate paper use. It is easy for any practice to save money and reduce paper use.
With integrated systems that conform to your current workflow and program, you can save on technology with automation. This functionality frees providers from using multiple systems, helping them focus on patients rather than paperwork.
Enhances Patient Engagement and Care
Automating the revenue cycle on the back end improves patient engagement on the front. For this reason, it’s important to focus on back-end workflows, even if the patient doesn’t see them.
Revenue cycle management presents an opportunity to leverage automation for better patient assurance.
Automation processes claim faster for greater accuracy and reduced lag times. Account segmentation also improves patient engagement and facilitates more efficient care. With automated processes in place for groups of accounts, several patients can move ahead in the lifecycle all at once.
With automation, patients can schedule appointments and get out-of-pocket cost estimates immediately. From that point, you can ask them to pay in advance or help move the patient into counseling for payment programs. If patients still can’t afford the payment, the health system can determine if they qualify for optional healthcare.
Conclusion
With automation, you can manage workflow processes more efficiently and enjoy time back in your day. By speeding up care, you can reduce costs and boost patient engagement, ultimately retaining more happy patients. Automation in revenue cycle management is a great way to save time and money for your practice and help patients attain better care.
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