Due to the nature of serving a smaller population with limited resources, Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) often function in a narrow space between operating in the green and red. This means any small advantage can become significant, which is why developing a solid strategy for revenue cycle management is so essential. Like one CAH in Iowa recently learned, technology and transparency can be simple to implement and deliver significant results.
Cass County Memorial Hospital in Atlantic, Iowa, earned HFMA’s MAP Award in the CAH category this year— an honor that their revenue cycle director, Cindy Petty, attributes to a new focus on transparency and the creative leveraging of technology. The HFMA MAP Award is an honor bestowed upon organizations that demonstrate high performance in the revenue cycle. The award recognizes organizations that utilize innovative strategies and meet industry standard revenue cycle benchmarks as well as HFMA’s own guidelines for best practices and exemplary patient satisfaction. In a recent article, Cindy Petty revealed how a focus on transparency and technology lead to their success.
Revenue Cycle Transparency— for patients and staff
You often hear about billing transparency in the context of fostering trust that leads to patient loyalty. Considering the service model for CAHs, and lack of competition in general, patient loyalty is rarely a concern. This can cause strategists to mistakenly overlook the other ways in which providing patients with billing transparency influences the revenue cycle. Giving patients accurate cost estimates establishes financial responsibility prior to service and can eliminate any temporal discounting afterward.
Before, the revenue cycle team at Cass County Memorial Hospital only provided estimates as needed, but a key part of their winning strategy in 2021 was to offer estimates for all scheduled surgery clinic procedures. They were so satisfied with the results, they plan to implement estimates facility-wide by the end of the year. “We hope that education and working with the patients will support greater collection and increased patient satisfaction,” Cindy explained.
Another creative way they applied transparency to the revenue cycle was to get staff more involved. By opening up the revenue cycle processes and sharing key performance metrics they motivated staff productivity and gained valuable input, “Staff have great ideas on how to improve processes.” She told HFMA. Engaging staff more in the revenue cycle improved their net A/R by an impressive 30 days.
Technology— better utilizing existing resources and knowing when to seek outside help
Part of their approach was to better utilize their existing systems. For example, staff used the EHR to provide care estimates by averaging charges for similar services. They also sought to increase MyChart registrations to take advantage of the patient access functionalities, relieving some of the burdens on staff by automating much of the registration process. The patient portal can also be used to request estimates fueling the parts of their revenue cycle strategy that rely on creating billing transparency.
Additionally, she told HFMA they leaned on a trusted early-out collections partner. The partner works closely with the hospital’s own internal patient financial services team to ensure a better patient experience and increase revenue from out-of-pocket costs. This strategy can be a game-changer for CAHs that have limited resources for technologies of their own as vendors (like us) provide patient portal technologies for account management.
By establishing a patient-driven approach to the revenue cycle, Critical Access Hospitals can improve cash flow, better allocate resources, and reduce bad debt. Professional provides scalable revenue cycle services tailored to the unique needs of CAHs. Schedule a complimentary consultation today and discover how we can assist you in implementing transparency and technology strategies to boost revenue in your organization.
