Is there a hospital business office staffing model or documentation that includes number of billers, collectors, precertification, authorization specialists, and customer service?
Answer 1: For patient access (precertification and authorization), the National Association of Healthcare Access Management has some data for members.
If you want to determine your own numbers to suit your organization, another way to look at these numbers is to not focus in on how many people are in each job, but to add together your current staffing costs for a cost-of-collection percentage and compare that with what outside billing companies would charge. This calculation could be used to show that keeping business office functions in-house is justified.
This question was answered by: Ruth Lande, senior vice president, patient revenues, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y., and a member of HFMA’s Metropolitan New York Chapter.
Answer 2: The Hospital Accounts Receivable Analysis Report by Aspen Publisher has good benchmark data.
This question was answered by: Caswell Samms, network CFO, Lincoln Medical Center and Harlem Hospital, New York City Public Health System.
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