Healthcare revenue cycle management

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H & R Accounts, Inc.
7017 John Deere Pkwy
PO Box 672
Moline, IL 61265

 

December 9, 2009 -- The current economic climate has many health care providers looking to outsource their accounts receivable functions to credit and collection professionals. Many providers face difficult financial positions and need to collect all available dollars in their revenue cycle to fund other investments.
 

The Modern Healthcare’s 2009 Outsourcing Survey found more providers are outsourcing portions of their revenue cycle. The survey, released in September, reported a 252 percent increase in the number of health
care providers outsourcing their accounts receivable. For the survey, receivables vendors reported a jump in provider clients from 125 clients in 2007 to 440 clients in 2008. “Collection efforts, no matter if it’s a selfpay, bad debt or an older insurance account receivable that you are attempting to collect, is a back-end process,” said Jay Rickman, Jr., ACA International’s chairman of the Health Care Section Committee and director of AMCOL Systems in Columbia, S.C. “Most collection partners, especially those who specialize in health care collections, have a core function of collection work and know and understand the complex, highly regulated and yet sometimes sensitive process of collecting health care dollars.” 

 

While collecting is a common example of an outsourcing function, vendors can offer a wide variety of options such as scheduling, registration and coding, insurance follow-up and denial management, self-pay follow-up, payment plan monitoring for self-pay accounts, traditional bad debt collection services, patient scoring services for charity care determination, scrubbing and skip tracing services, and Medicaid eligibility services.

 

Outsourcing accounts receivable functions can provide significant benefits to health care providers. Outside companies can provide access to the technology and staff expertise needed to increase efficiencies without
the need for an internal IT or personnel investment. “Specialization is a powerful thing,” said Moises Eilemberg, president of H & R Accounts, Inc. in Moline, Ill. “Companies that specialize in these functions become experts at them and can amortize significant investments in training, technology and compliance among many clients.” Patient service and convenience are other outsourcing benefits. 

 

Outside agencies that provide debt collection services have knowledgeable representatives who have the ability to engage patients in personal conversations to help them sort through a sometimes complex healthcare transaction. Also, these agencies often accept several different forms of payment, offer online payment capabilities and have staff available on weekends and beyond regular office hours providing additional convenience for the patient. An experienced outsourcing partner can also be a valuable resource to help providers navigate the complex and growing maze of federal and state compliance regulations, such as consumer credit, privacy and information security.

 

According to the Modern Healthcare survey, some health care executives are reluctant to sign any outsourcing contracts that do not produce immediate return on investment because of the uncertainty in the industry during the recession. “Sometimes providers are hesitant to outsource because of the hard costs involved,” said Eilemberg. “However, once a provider considers the management distraction and all the other explicit and hidden costs of handling these processes in-house (such as statements, postage, handling inbound and outbound calls, technology, payment processing, administrative costs, etc.), outsourcing almost always becomes a pretty compelling proposition.” 

 

Some providers are concerned that when an outside company gets paid based on collections, customer service quality could deteriorate. A quality outsourcing partner understands protecting patient relations is the only way to have a successful long-term partnership with a provider. “Providers are happy to see we treat their patients with just as much care, empathy and respect as they themselves would,” said Eilemberg. 

 

Modern Healthcare explains industry experts have been squeezing efficiencies out of hospital operations for years and the revenue cycle might represent the last relatively painless place for savings. According to an article published by the Institute of Management & Administration (IOMA), corporate downsizing has stretched personnel resources to the point where the accounts receivable portfolio typically cannot be adequately managed by a strapped credit department. “By outsourcing to a trusted and capable partner, providers can focus on improving on what they do the most, taking care of patients and collecting that recently billed claim,” Rickman said. 

 

Scott Wilson and Doug Brown, co-authors of the Black Book of Outsourcing, state in 2008 more than threequarters of all hospitals outsourced at least one clinical or nonclinical function. They predict the health care outsourcing market will grow at about twice the rate of the overall outsourcing industry over the next five years.

 

About H & R Accounts:

 

H & R Accounts (www.hraccounts.com) and its operating divisions MedPay Management Systems and Preferred Medical Deposit, provide revenue cycle management services to a wide range of healthcare providers across the nation. From third party claim resolution to self-pay billing and collections, no other company offers the same combination of maximum revenue-to-cash conversion, respect for the patient, regulatory compliance, and ease of use. That's why hundreds of hospitals, physician clinics and other healthcare providers rely on H & R Accounts to help them accelerate their cash flow cycle and achieve a healthier bottom line.