Sponsored by Foundations
Every year, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of revenue dollars are lost due to operational inefficiencies that lead to errors or missed revenue capture opportunities.
Many practices and centers may not even realize what they’re missing – they’re just too busy keeping their head above water. Even the most financially stable of institutions may experience diminished or sub-optimal financial health: they have trouble acquiring or keeping staff to support growing demand; their devices age, leading to more downtime or delays in upgrading their modalities; and administrative tasks backlog faster than staff can keep up. So, it’s no surprise that when an organization’s operations struggle, so does its revenue integrity. Similarly, when revenue integrity is improved, organizations experience boosts in their operational and financial health.
COMPLEXITIES LEAD TO REVENUE LEAKAGE
Maintaining a high degree of revenue integrity is a complex matter. Tasks include accurate procedure documentation, timely and precise coding, charge capture for both technical and professional components, reimbursement alignment with payer requirements, and compliance with CMS and other regulatory bodies. Gaps in any of these can impact an administrator’s ability to ensure accurate, efficient, and compliant billing. Furthermore, the risk of revenue leakage increases when these tasks are handled manually. Many RCM teams are challenged with maintaining optimal processes because they either don’t have the staff or the capacity to keep up.
TECHNOLOGY DRIVES OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES
There are several key advantages to using a technology platform, such as a business operations platform, to boost operational efficiency and reduce revenue leakage. For example, a business operations platform can quickly process data about charge capture, RVUs and revenue. It personalizes the presentation of it for individual staff roles, and presents it as near real-time, interactive analytics. It’s simply not possible to deliver this information as rapidly when managing data manually; e.g., by the time a person completes a report, it will already be outdated.
At the center of any business operations platform is data. More specifically, a core function is its ability to quickly process and prepare data through automation – it converts a sea of varied information and organizes it into meaningful data sets. Sure, a spreadsheet can hold and calculate data, but it can take hours upon hours for a person to do this. A business operations platform can automatically pull from a variety of systems and collate information, freeing up the time of staff to work on other clinical tasks.
A business operations platform can also personalize analytics for specific roles. All staff – whether they’re CFOs, practice admins, supervisors, etc. – need information that is relevant to what they do. Table time analytics matter to a practice admin while billed charges analytics matter to a RCM manager. A business operations platform delivers specific information to a specific role, eliminating the need to chase it down or comb through irrelevant data. This valuable process efficiency doesn’t just slightly improve staff productivity – it boosts it!
Whether it be a practice, imaging center, or department, organizations are competing in a market that demands increasingly faster output. Appointments, table times, and TATs are just a few examples. So, staff need real-time information to make real-time decisions, and a business operations platform delivers information in real time; e.g., revenue by location, revenue by procedure, service type, etc. Taking it a step further, an advanced business operations platform can also provide predictive analytics to help administrators plan more effectively and efficiently; for example, forecasting patient demand and the staff needed to support it. By using real-time information, organizations become more efficient, leading to reduced costs and increased revenue.
RECOVERING REVENUE
When organizations leverage a business operations platform to improve their revenue integrity, they can address known gaps and uncover gaps that were previously unknown. To illustrate, consider gaps in charge capture such as missed or underbilled charges. Many practices lack an adequate reconciliation process to ensure every exam is properly coded and billed; e.g., CTA or MRA head/neck combos. And matching the accession number to what was ordered and what was billed is not sufficient – this doesn’t show which or how many charges were missed. Some practices audit manually, but the volume may be so high, staff may not be able to remediate issues before a claim’s submission deadline.
This is where a business operations platform can help. It provides a detailed, step-by-step look into billings with auditing capabilities. Automated verbiage searches into case reports uncover gaps such as CPT codes that were missed by even the most experienced coders. Findings are presented through intuitive dashboards, and practices can fine-tune the automated searches to meet their specific needs. For example, auditing for underbilled charges on procedures that were not comprehensively coded; e.g., a retroperitoneal ultrasound. Using a business operations platform ensures the rapid identification and correction of billing discrepancies across high volumes, so that practices can potentially recover tens of thousands of rightfully earned dollars every month.
SUPERCHARGE YOUR REVENUE CAPTURE
Radiology businesses – practices, imaging centers, hospital departments – are facing increasing strain which can be alleviated with healthier margins. A business operations platform, like HealthLevel’s Foundations™, supercharges radiology operations to improve efficiency, cut costs, and boost revenue. It provides visibility into revenue activities with powerful auditing capabilities to ensure that gaps are uncovered, addressed, and that revenue capture is maximized. Furthermore, its real-time, personalized, interactive analytics enable radiology administrators and staff alike to boost productivity, ensuring that personnel are working efficiently and effectively through real-time decisions.
HealthLevel offers Foundations™, the leading radiology business operations platform, through a risk-free, 60-day trial with no long-term contracts.
Visit www.healthlevel.com to learn more about this powerful radiology platform.
