Revenue Cycle Departments Increase Productivity

Hospital revenue cycle productivity continues to increase, with improvements often the result of collections outsourcing. More hospitals are servicing patient accounts and pursuing credit and payments using consolidated finance departments or specialized departments. In the past, hospitals frequently outsourced some revenue cycle operations, most often by contracting with outside agencies (2016 Revenue Cycle Management Outsourcing, Black Book).

At the same time, a study of 500 acute care hospitals in the ActionOI® database found similar improvements in productivity. Workload expressed as original claim numbers has grown 35 percent, but hours worked have decreased by 25 percent. There has been a corresponding 30.6 percent increase in contracted service expenses.

Net Days in Patient Accounts Receivable Declines, CY2015-17

Jeanne Slates is offering manager, Truven Health Analytics.