Why should medical billing companies consolidate and simplify their patient AR systems?
Medical billing teams spend countless hours toggling between practice management (PM) systems to collect patient AR. The time-consuming approach to manually processing data, sending statements, answering patient questions, and posting payments, makes patient AR a significant cost center. Managing patient AR becomes even more complex and time-consuming when medical billing companies work in many different billing systems to complete this work.
The patchwork of digital patient AR systems provides marginal improvements.
Using digital patient billing platforms can reduce some manual effort by giving patients self-service access to billing information. They can also reduce costs by sending emails and text messages instead of mailed statements. In addition, digital payment portals save time and effort when patients make payments without interacting with a billing team member. However, because PM systems don’t interoperate, digital billing platforms only work with individual PM systems. As a result, these platforms can only solve problems for particular practices, increasing the number of software platforms and workflows a billing team has to manage.
Using many systems to manage patient AR hurts operations.
Using different systems and workflows to manage patient AR can negatively affect a company’s operations in several ways:
- Inefficiency: When employees have to perform the same tasks in multiple systems, it can lead to delays, a decrease in productivity, and an increase in costs.
- Difficulty in coordinating work: When employees use different patient billing and payment systems to access information and perform the same tasks, it can be difficult to coordinate their work and share information.
- Increased risk of errors: errors and data inconsistencies increase when billing teams work in dissimilar systems that process information in inconsistent ways.
- Increased training and support costs: Employees who use multiple systems to perform the same tasks can increase training and support costs. This is due to the need to train employees on numerous systems and the increased demand for technical support.
- Difficulty in data analysis: When data is stored in multiple systems, it can be challenging to analyze and gain insights. This can negatively impact understanding of how patient AR affects overall revenue cycle performance metrics.
- Difficulty in scalability: It becomes difficult to scale the patient billing and collection operations when multiple systems are involved, as more FTE will be needed to support all the duplication of effort.
Assess the need to consolidate patient AR processes and technology
By reducing technology platforms, medical billing companies can eliminate duplicative processes, reduce manual work, and improve efficiency. Here are several steps to move toward a consolidated and centralized patient AR system:
- Assessment: Conduct a thorough evaluation of current technology platforms to identify areas for consolidation.
- Define goals: Clearly define the goals and objectives of consolidation, such as improved efficiency or cost savings.
- Integration planning: Plan the integration of technology platforms, including data migration, testing, and training.
- Implementation: Implement the consolidation, including integrating systems, training employees, and updating processes.
- Maintenance: Continuously monitor and maintain the consolidated technology platform, ensuring it remains aligned with the company’s goals and objectives.
- Evaluate results: Evaluate the effects of consolidation, including any improvements or challenges, to inform future technology decisions.
Raxia helps medical billing companies consolidate and automate patient AR processes across all PM systems. Raxia AI transforms your high-effort, low-ROI patient accounts receivable process into an efficient, connected, intelligent consumer payment experience. Contact Us For More Information.
