Five Ways to Improve your Practice’s Revenue Cycle

With healthcare costs at an all-time high, many people are opting to either pay for medical care out-of-pocket or enroll in plans which offer high-deductibles. With the popularity of consumer-directed health plans (CDHP), a trend which has led to greater patient responsibility for the cost of their care, medical can practices face potential cash flow issues while trying to collect directly from patients.

According to a recent UBA Health Plan Survey, enrollment in CDHPs continues to grow. In fact, the reports stated that when it comes to enrolling in healthcare plans, 31.5% of employees enrolled in CDHP plans overall, an increase of 19.3% from 2016.

Since patients enrolled in CDHP plans tend to not have met their deductible early in the year, many practices can experience cash flow problems. To battle this, practices should look into building a Revenue Cycle Management system to help collect payments.

Here are 5 steps your practice can take to help alleviate cash flow concerns:

1.  Create Internal Processes
   There are many stages of the revenue cycle process. To ensure timely payments, it would be wise to develop procedures to handle every patient payment touchpoint. Provide employees access and training on all procedures will ensure a smooth patient experience and will help improve cash flow
2. Collect Payments Early
   Helping patients understand their financial obligations and having a system in place to collect payments at the beginning of a patient’s visit, will help reduce the burden of outstanding invoices.
3. Consolidate as Many Systems as You Can
   Duplicating data into multiple systems isn’t efficient. Consider consulting with your vendors to find ways to integrate your EHR with your payment systems, accounting systems, and other financial infrastructure.
4. Provide Alternative Payment Methods
   Be sure to provide as many payment method options for patients as possible. Most people are comfortable with online payments, either from your website or other 3^rd party applications, using credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers. The more methods you have available, the faster you’ll receive payment.
5. Be Patient-centric
   Implementing a process for revenue cycle management should help refocus your practice on providing quality treatment to your patients. If you’re not providing quality care, and your systems are alienating your patients, then you run the risk of losing patients to a competitor, and ultimately, losing revenue.

Without processes in place to collect payment for services during a patient’s visit, some physician practices may find themselves struggling to collect from patients in full, or even at all.

If your practice is struggling with unpaid patient invoices or needs a cash infusion to normalize cash flow, contact us today to get started. We can help guide you to the right financial solution that best fits your current business goal.