Improving a hospital’s revenue cycle management
It’s crucial for healthcare organisations to deliver quality patient care and improve customer satisfaction profitably. That’s why a complete view of the patient from an administrative, clinical, and financial perspective is critical. This allows for more informed decision-making, increased patient satisfaction, and faster, more accurate payment completion.
Streamline processes
Without this visibility into patient care interactions, revenue cycle management (RCM) can only address a small fraction of the complete picture.
The revenue cycle management process is not an easy journey. Healthcare organisations often face complex situations as many factors (especially clinical reporting) impact the ability to efficiently collect revenue. The longer it takes between patient care being delivered and receipt of payment can have lasting negative effects on the hospital.
Seventy-six percent of hospitals – ranging in bed size from 50 to 500 – said denials were the biggest challenge they faced with revenue cycle management, according to a new HIMSS Analytics report. The report also shows that healthcare organisations that use multiple RCM systems have higher rates of denials and big difficulties gathering and normalising data.
By providing clinicians with readily accessible out-of-pocket patient cost information, TrakCare can help enable an enriched level of patient conversation, reducing the time needed to complete patient consultations, while improving pricing transparency
Thankfully, hospitals can now rely on efficient solutions that help measure, streamline, and manage the payment process. One of the leading solutions that have a strong Middle East presence is the InterSystems TrakCare unified healthcare information system. TrakCare, with its unified revenue cycle management and clinical capabilities, allows healthcare providers to have a holistic view of their patient interactions in a single platform from an administrative, clinical, and financial perspective. With TrakCare, the patient journey is seamless; patients spend less time waiting, they avoid unnecessary testing, and they experience smoother care transitions.
TrakCare unifies the business and clinical sides of healthcare by coupling administrative data, such as a patient’s name, insurance provider and other personal information, with the treatment a patient receives and their healthcare data. This makes it possible to highly automate insurer claims processing and patient billing, reduce revenue leakage, and streamline the reporting process.
A holistic view
TrakCare enables clinicians to access a holistic view spanning both the patient’s clinical history and their potential out-of-pocket costs instantly, allowing them to discuss potential costs and receive informed consent on the spot. This can be achieved while handling complex multi-payer situations and compliance reporting requirements. Clinicians can focus on treating patients, instead of worrying about a potential break in workflow that might impact billing.
Many healthcare providers already deliver a range of multi-appointment care plans in addition to bundled care services. These can require a much more sophisticated view of how costs and payer payments interact throughout the care journey. Flexibility and in-depth visibility into these complex interactions become essential for revenue cycle management, especially when you have a mix of “fee for service” and “value based” care payments.
By providing clinicians with readily accessible out-of-pocket patient cost information, TrakCare can help enable an enriched level of patient conversation, reducing the time needed to complete patient consultations, while improving pricing transparency. Informed consent also gives healthcare providers an opportunity to proactively handle situations where the patient is likely to face difficulties paying for appropriate care. All of this adds up to improved patient satisfaction.
Enhancing efficiency
Furthermore, while healthcare providers are streamlining their current profitability situation, they need to keep an eye on future challenges such as patient privacy issues, expansion projects and interoperability. TrakCare helps the organisation address all of these current and future challenges so that hospitals in the Middle East can do what they do best: provide world-class patient care.
InterSystems TrakCare electronic medical record system is trusted by leading healthcare providers in more than 25 countries and has enabled many hospitals in the Middle East to achieve HIMSS EMRAM Stage 7 and 6 awards.
To learn more about TrakCare Revenue Cycle Management workflows, contact our InterSystems Middle East team at MEmarketing@InterSystems.com.