EOB Processing
Administrative costs are a major contributor to the healthcare industry’s runaway costs. The industry spends $100 million annually to manage claims processes alone – much of it tied to costly, inefficient and error-prone paper-based processes. A major culprit of all this operational inefficiency is the delivery of payments and explanation of benefits (EOB) information, which arrive as paper most of the time, according to the McKinsey report, “Overhauling the U.S. Healthcare Payment System”.
Read MoreAccording to a new survey by Black Book, the consulting business is booming in healthcare revenue cycle management; and rightly so! Challenges that executives cited for updating RCM projects include: 77 percent have not begun a strategic plan for transforming RCM solutions for known deadlines because of lack of internal experts to do so and 80 percent of CIOs said they do not have the IT staff in-house to transform RCM end-to-end.
Read MoreYou’re a healthcare payments professional and by now, you probably have an opinion on the topic of reassociation. You’ve seen the Orbograph white paper, How to Reassociate EFT/ACH Payments to ERAs in 2014, and see why the industry needs to make a move in this area. If you haven’t read it, now’s your chance! Or check out http://www.caqh.org/. There’s only 161 days left to prepare for implementation deadline for federally-mandated CAQH CORE EFT and ERA Operating Rules…
Read MoreA recent survey on ICD-10 indicates that one-third of the 500 physician practices interviewed have not started compliance work yet. October 2014 is the implementation deadline, but how much time is really needed? Key highlights of the survey include: thirty-six percent of respondents who have not started ICD-10 preparations believe there is plenty of time to prepare, 26 percent don’t have the time, staff or training resources to start; and 22 percent don’t know where to start planning…
Read MoreIt’s a tough world out there for healthcare providers who are typically scrounging for 15-20% of their claims revenues which are either denied or incorrectly processed. ICD-10 is slowly approaching (10-1-2014), and with the number of codes jumping to 68,000 from the mere 14,000 of ICD-9, it made me wonder how much more difficult the billing and reconciling process may become for providers and patients as there are significant risks in this new process. Anne Smith, RN, principal and CEO of Fredrikson Healthcare Consulting, said, “while the biggest changes focus on code structure and conventions, it would be a mistake to assume only coders need training for the new system.“
Read MoreWorking with a financial institution for healthcare payment processing via a medical lockbox is an excellent method to eliminate inefficient in-house manual processes for healthcare providers. Providers can typically reduce overhead, improve collections in receivables, decrease bad debt/write-offs, reduce fraud and eliminate paper in the office. While the benefits can be impressive, selecting the right vendor can often be a confusing task.
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