Traditionally, providers have outsourced accounts for bad debt collections, extended business office and insurance follow up. In today’s environment of value based reimbursement and increased patient liabilities, savvy healthcare leaders are finding that other areas of the revenue cycle can benefit from targeted outsourcing.
It All Starts on the Front End
Outsourcing is becoming increasingly prevalent in the patient access area. From patient estimates and scheduling to pre-authorization and financial counseling to pre-collections and appeal of denials, providers are benefitting from outsourcing certain tasks. Hollis Cobb assists clients in the area of patient access in a variety of ways including:
- Stopping denials before they start by ensuring that pre-authorizations and pre-registrations are performed timely and never missed
- Assisting with scheduling procedures, keeping scheduling delays to a minimum and increasing monthly revenue
- Collecting co-pays and deductibles early in the scheduling or pre-registration phase
- Helping patients understand their financial obligations and helping them locate any financial assistance or other resources that may be available, thereby keeping self pay accounts from aging
- Filling in the gaps where staffing shortages exist and preventing backlogs in areas of the revenue cycle
Enhancing Patient Satisfaction
The patient experience is vital to a healthy hospital system and outsourcing some customer service tasks can help providers keep their patient satisfaction scores strong. Today’s healthcare challenges often prohibit providers from increasing staff even when the patient population increases or changes. Hollis Cobb’s staffing services can help providers keep their patient satisfaction scores where they need to be to better serve their patient populations by:
- Minimizing hold times and call abandonment rates in customer service call centers
- Providing staffing in areas with high employee turnover rates
- Keeping call escalations to a minimum by providing staff to handle sensitive calls from patients with issues or concerns
- Quickly filing insurance that was missed and following up on problem accounts requiring additional documentation or research
Hollis Cobb provides clients with a wide variety of custom reports that detail key performance indicators, call volume statistics and return on investment for customer service projects.
The revenue cycle is like a puzzle and each piece must fit together with the other pieces resulting in maximum revenue generation for providers and the best possible experience for the patient population. The Hollis Cobb team prides itself in its ability to be flexible and accommodating to providers with unique challenges and needs, helping them to be the best they can be in the communities they serve.
