Roger Shaul, president of revenue cycle management provider PMMC: The proper use of a contract management system can make a difference of at least 2 percent to 3 percent net revenue. Thus, the proper use of a contract management system should be considered “mission critical,” from a financial perspective, but it often does not receive the attention it deserves. Limiting the focus to only recovered amounts neglects the overall purpose and tends to favor only mistakes associated with a relatively low volume of high balance accounts while allowing a high volume of potentially obscure and relatively low balance accounts to remain with balances due. This mentality makes heroes out of the contract management and recovery team but does little to assure revenue integrity. The use of metrics with contract management helps assure all accounts receive appropriate attention and that the hospital gets paid correctly.
To learn more about key metrics to determine the health of a hospital billing department, access this story from Becker’s Hospital Review.
If you would like to share your RCM best practices, please email Kelly Gooch at kgooch@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in the “RCM tip of the day” series.
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