Can patient access automation cut eligibility denials by 50% and grow point-of-service collections by 600%? Magnolia Regional Health Center was able to attain it, claims Jacqueline LaPointe of RevCycle Intelligence.
Deonne Henry, the Vice President of Revenue Cycle at Magnolia Regional Health Center in Mississippi says that the patient access area is where everything starts adding “That mindset is what led to our success”.
Speaking to Revenue Cycle Intelligence, Henry found that their 200-bed community hospital recently increased point-of-service collections by 600 percent and decreased eligibility denials by 50 percent, just by automating the patient access department.
What defines Patient Access Automation?
What exactly defines ‘patient access automation’? It simply means automating each component from patient registration and insurance verification to cost estimates and patient collections.
The front-end staff at Magnolia Regional Health Center, for instance, was dependent on manual entry and processes earlier. They had to manually run eligibility, after completing the registration questionnaire, the staff had to visit a website, and enter the same questionnaire information into it. This duplicative manual process would often result in incomplete or incorrect information, leading to claim issues at the back-end.
Deonne in her pursuit to improve the revenue cycle of the hospital searched for a revenue cycle management technology that would automate patient access and provide the administration data insights.
Technology to Automate Patient Access:
They wanted to get to a point that would enable tracking the percentage of a patient scheduled insurance certification rates, authorization rates, point-of-service collections, clean claims rates, percentage of A/R is collected, and more.
The intent was to define the accuracy of the patient registration process that is automation enabled, the front-end staff could verify insurance eligibility and provide cost estimates in real-time.
Registration Questionnaire Automatically Audited:
Information or answers entered into the registration questionnaire would be automatically audited by the revenue cycle tool, identifying problems, and notifying the patient in real- time. At the same, the system alerts the patient access staff if any inaccurate information was provided by the patient. They can tell patients instantly about their coverage, and verify eligibility in quick time.
It can be determined from the experiences of Magnolia Regional Health Center, how patient access automation improved their revenue cycle management.
If you are a practice or a health center that wants to automate the patient access area, Billing Paradise with more than a decade of experience in the field can help you find the right technology and vendor to fulfill your automation needs.
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