The Benefits of Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management Services in Healthcare

One of the most important aspects of your practice is your revenue cycle. The way you manage your revenue cycle and the services you utilize to optimize it makes a large impact on the revenue coming into your practice each year. If a provider finds themselves with a pile of denied claims each billing cycle, and a workload of resubmissions to complete, it will take even longer to receive a payment for the services that were rendered. If more of your patients are signing up for high deductible plans, then providers need to redirect their efforts to collect smaller patient payments rather than large sums from insurance payers. In order to optimize your revenue cycle, increase your revenue, and grow your practice, you need to outsource revenue cycle management.

Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management:

1)   Bridges the Gap

While the business and clinical tracks often operate separately, outsourcing revenue cycle management can bridge the gap. Complete interoperability enables providers to complete tasks like insurance verification, mass claim creation, and payment processing within their practice management software and Electronic Health Record.

2)   Avoid Resubmission

By outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management to a qualified vendor, providers can avoid the resubmission process more than ever before. With qualified billing professionals working to scrub your claims before they are submitted, your claims are more likely to be approved the first time. This allows your billing department to focus on more pressing issues than the resubmission of claims while also encouraging a quicker payment. Your staff is still entering all of the information regarding the claim, but by outsourcing revenue cycle management, your claim is stopped before submission if an error is detected.

3)   Simplify Billing & Collections

Another issue that causes a delay in payment for a provider is if they file their claim at the wrong time in the billing cycle. By outsourcing revenue cycle management, your vendor helps your team differentiate between mid-month versus end-of-month billers to ensure you are truly optimizing your billing cycle. When your claim is filed at the correct time, your payment is more likely to be received promptly.

Your services vendor will also help simplify your collections process by taking on the management of difficult collections. They will work with your patients to help them understand their options and feel empowered to make a payment that works for them. With the increase in high deductible plans in the industry, this is an important benefit.

4)   Improves Timely Payments

While your RCM services vendor works on difficult collections, outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management also improves patient payments in other ways. By working with a quality vendor, providers can identify weaknesses in their revenue cycle. This could look like a lack of updated software or even a lack of outlets for your patients to make payments. By outsourcing revenue cycle management, your practice can increase timely payments by working on these weaknesses, working with your patients, and optimizing your billing cycle to increase timely payments. 

5)   Reduces Denials

Denials are most often caused by an error in medical billing codes. Mentioned before, outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management to an RCM services vendor will give you access to tools like claims scrubbing, but also tools like denial management. Together with your vendor, your practice can cause a reduction in denials as much as 99%.

6)   Improves Patient Payments

By working with your patients to explain their options, offer compassion when necessary, and dedicate the time your patients need, outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management can increase patient payments. Practices all over the country are becoming increasingly reliant on this form of revenue. Without patient payments, practices are closing their doors or selling to larger entities. Your RCM services vendor can spend more time than your in-house team can make sure your patients feel comfortable, encouraged, and capable of making a payment.

To learn more about how outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management can grow your practice, click here.