The health system — which includes 90-bed Campbell County Memorial Hospital, about 20 clinics and a long-term care center — hired Xtend Healthcare in June.
It recently combined and relocated its clinic and hospital business offices, resulting in the loss of three staff members. It also implemented a new EHR for its clinics and combined the hospital and clinics into one EHR, Meditech.
All of this led to the billing backlog and hiring of Xtend, said Yvonne Robinett, revenue cycle director at Campbell County Health.
Ms. Robinett said the health system had a steep increase in account receivable days and needed help with cutting the backlog while it trained billing staff.
She estimated the health system has a total billing backlog of $12 million.
“It’s a lot of issues that hit us all at one time. It’s not necessarily that we haven’t sent our bills or claims, it’s that some of them need to be reworked or there are errors in them or different things of that nature,” said Ms. Robinett. “We’re not sitting on a huge backlog of claims that we’ve never sent out. There’s just a lot of work to be done.”
In other revenue cycle improvement efforts, Campbell County Health has hired a new vendor for self-pay payments. That agreement will take effect Nov. 5.
More articles on healthcare finance:
For-profit hospital stock report: Week of Oct. 22-26
Man breaks hip, then gets in on hospital employees’ $1M lottery winning
60% of employers aren’t tracking wasteful healthcare spending
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
