Why Central Billing Office Services Make Revenue Cycle Easier for Critical Access Hospitals
Small, rural hospitals, known as Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), often struggle with managing their revenue collection process. They are different from bigger hospitals – they are smaller, have fewer resources, carry high overhead and are located in rural areas. This makes tasks like billing, coding, and handling payments more difficult. But there's a solution that can make things easier.
Why Specialized Help is Needed
CAHs are unique. They serve fewer patients but deal more with Medicare and Medicaid. This means their billing and payment process is more complex. What's more, these hospitals often don't have access to the latest technology or experts in revenue management. They also don’t have access to a local workforce to fill the needs they have. Jobs can remain open for long periods and even when people are hired training can be an issue. This is where a specialized revenue cycle management service can help.
What This Service Does
A company that knows about the specific needs of CAHs can offer a lot of help. They can take care of the complicated billing and coding rules. They can bring in technology to make things more efficient. And they can manage all the billing and collections from a central place. This lets the hospital staff that is onsite focus on taking care of patients instead of paperwork.
The Benefits
Using such a service can really help a CAH's finances:
More Money In: With better billing, hospitals can earn more money.
Less Work for Staff: Hospital staff can spend more time on patient care, not on paperwork.
Happy Patients: When billing is done right, patients have fewer problems with their bills.
Better Decisions: The service can present data to help hospitals make smart choices.
Process Improvement: the experts providing the centralized billing office service can learn the hospital’s practices and identify areas for improvement to reduce AR, minimize uncollectable claims, and offer solutions to reduce claim denials.
Support for the CFO: these services usually offer executive-level involvement to provide more feedback and monthly guidance to the CFO who may be busy with dealing with the day-to-day of the hospital.
Customer Service: the CBO service will have a team available to answer patient questions about their bills to speed up patient payments.
Technology: unlike a hospital CBO service providers will have staff that have expertise in a variety of EMRs and will have the ability to use technology that streamlines billing and claims process.
Improved Cash Flow: most CBO billing companies charge a percentage of what they collect for the hospital. This means they will work really hard to collect as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
For small rural hospitals, working with a revenue cycle management service is more than just a financial choice. It's a step towards being more stable and growing. It helps them handle the complex world of healthcare finance while still focusing on caring for their patients. As healthcare keeps changing, hospitals add specialties, but fewer healthcare experts relocate to rural areas, these services will become more and more important for the success of small hospitals.
To learn how InlandRCM has built decade long client relationships with CAHs supporting their revenue cycle needs through our CBO service email us at start@inlandrcm.com
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