What You Need to Know About Revenue Cycle Management

Revenue cycle management is of upmost concern, given the current economic climate around the world. Today, there are many different platforms and methods that are used to manage the revenue cycle in health care. Managing revenue is a business principle that helps a business (this includes medical facilities) remain in operation and also produce a profit for its shareholders.

Medicine is not a non-profit venture, despite most people may viewing it as one. Although most of the medicine and science findings do lead to better cures and treatments, financial backing is needed to do this research. In the healthcare industry, a revenue cycle manager will manage the medical facility’s accounts using the money from patients and clients who have had their treatments and medical diagnoses at the facility. Since medical insurance and medical aid companies are usually the biggest contributors to patient’s medical bills, the hospital or medical institution will have to manage their relationship with the contributors in order to be paid. This all depends on the geographic location of the medical facility. There are states and areas which have restrictive health-plan structures. This is not good for the revenue cycle management in healthcare and the results in complex billing requirements.

Most medical facilities will take between 10 and 15 days to bill a patient after service delivery, this is longer than other businesses and industries which usually bill a client immediately. The patients and the state legisilation can represent a real challenge to revenue cycle managers who wish to recieve payment for the medical services as quickly as possible. The revenue cycle is also affected by the many organizations which manage healthcare. This relates to the availabilty of the health registration information and the reporting of the finances of a patient and whether they are likely to be to afford treatment.

How do medical facilities such as hospitals leverage processes, technologies, relationships and business structures to improve their financial performance? The current tough economic environment represent a major challenge for hospitals in employing the revenue-cycle management practices to help them to optimize their revenue. One of the challenges that hospitals currently face is the management of accounts that have bills thats have been outstanding for more than 3 months. Since many people do not have medical insurance, it means they may struggle to pay their medical bills, which results in a big problem for a hospital or medical facility. In addition, this can lead to cash flow problems if the hospital is privately owned and has no other source of income. The way that most hospitals tend to tackle this challenge is to make sure that they have good working relationships with the major medical insurance companies, medical aid companies and organisations so they can provide a stable revenue cycle management in healthcare not only for the industry, but also to ensure a finanical security base for the hopistal.