ASCs have long faced challenges in collecting reimbursement, making it critical for centers to streamline their revenue cycle management.
Here's how three ASCs are handling revenue cycle management:
1. The Surgical Clinic, a multispecialty ASC in Nashville, Tenn., manages its revenue cycle through a third-party organization while everything else is handled in-house, Monica White, director of revenue cycle, told Becker's ASC Review.
Monica White: We try to make our procedures as straightforward as possible to reduce complications for our organization or the patient. We continuously review operations and procedures to ensure they are meeting compliance standards and caring for our patients to the best of our ability. We review every patient feedback survey and consider ways to improve based on that feedback. We have also implemented an advisory team of internal team members from different departments that meets monthly to discuss any concerns that they have or patients have mentioned in our procedures and brainstorm ways to improve.
2. Geneva, Ill.-based Fox Valley Orthopedics Ambulatory Surgery Center, an orthopedic-focused ASC accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, handles its revenue cycle in-house, Vishal Mehta, MD, president and managing partner, told Becker's ASC Review.
Vishal Mehta: We keep RCM in-house currently. It can be more expensive than outsourcing, but in our organization, it is more accurate and has a better yield. We constantly monitor this and where we are on a daily/weekly basis.
3. Cincinnati (Ohio) GI is a midsize, independent gastroenterology practice. It handles RCM in-house for physician professional billing, endoscopy center facility fees and pathology services but outsources anesthesia billing, CEO Greg Schooler told Becker's ASC Review.
Greg Schooler: Third parties, in my experience, do not provide the same level of curated care in processing claims, filing secondary claims, filing appeals and generally ensuring adherence to negotiated contract rates with insurance companies. We also frequently audit our revenue cycle performance and benchmark regularly. We utilize treasury management tools with our bank, which allow a completely paperless process from lock box to posting. This streamlines the timeline and lowers the number of full-time equivalents needed. We also manage our patients in the precollections phase before any outstanding balances are forwarded to a collection agency, and we always utilize two collection agencies and monitor their results. If one is significantly less successful with their collections process, then they are replaced.