Revenue integrity is a critical aspect of financial health in the healthcare industry. Hospitals and healthcare organizations must ensure they receive appropriate reimbursement for the services they provide to their patients. Over the last few years, Softek has been more involved than ever, providing hospitals and healthcare organizations solutions to improve their revenue integrity process. These efforts have made it evident that hospitals that do not create structure around the revenue cycle will struggle to achieve financial goals.
One crucial area that can sometimes be overlooked is charge reconciliation. The process of charge reconciliation involves reviewing and reconciling charges from different departments, ensuring that everything is accurately billed and recorded. A streamlined charge reconciliation process can lead to better financial management and, ultimately, better patient care.
Here are some ways hospitals can improve their charge reconciliation processes:
1. Adopt a top-down approach.
We see the most success when clients take an approach from the CFO level down to the department managers. Without consistent oversight of charge reconciliation duties, we see limited responsibility taken by the departments themselves to ensure charging accuracy. As a CFO or Rev Cycle leader, ensure that you have reoccurring meetings to drive reconciliation and have metrics for adoption reporting.
2. Set clear goals and objectives with defined roles and responsibilities.
It is not uncommon for there to be a significant disconnect between clinical departments and revenue integrity staff. An organization must define expectations for charge reconciliation. How often are departments expected to reconcile charges? When issues arise, who is addressing the problems? Creating a consistent and well-defined workflow will do wonders for your organization. Organizations should also have goals and celebrate milestones as a team.
3. Leverage technology.
Manual charge reconciliation processes can be time-consuming and error-prone. Automating the process can help hospitals save time, reduce errors and ensure accurate billing. Technology streamlines these efforts, and reporting and metrics bring vital visibility. Without proper auditing and reporting, it is difficult to know who is or isn’t following through with their charge reconciliation tasks.
What does Softek® do?
Softek’s mission is to help hospital systems get the most out of their investment in Oracle Cerner Millennium®. We do this by providing innovative software solutions and consulting services that can achieve more together than either can alone.
At Softek, our team of innovators and software developers brings expertise beyond the ordinary to every client. Our experts are involved with Oracle Cerner Millennium® hospitals throughout the country, consulting clients so they can optimize system performance and revenue integrity.
Softek delivers a full suite of consulting services and software solutions to assess and optimize EMR system performance, including revenue cycle integrity and patient accounting.
Softek was awarded 2021 Best in KLAS for Revenue Cycle Optimization.
Let’s talk about how you can get the most out of your Oracle Cerner Millennium® system.
