Hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers have an important job: Taking care of patients’ health. It is equally important that they get paid for providing such a vital service. With the Affordable Care Act, increasing use of electronic health records and insurance payer model changes, things can get lost in the cycle. Technology like MedCom’s charge capture software can help.
Reduce Denials
For hospitals seeking to maximize revenue, reducing claim denials is a key priority as well as a top challenge. About 1 in 5 claims for services provided are delayed or denied at a point in time.
About 30 percent to 40 percent of payer denials are due to minor things such as incorrect data entry. In such cases, electronic registration forms, which can flag any missing data, can drastically help eliminate such errors that can have pricey consequences.
Reduce Errors
Not having a reliable charge capture process can lead to improper coding and missed items, which can lead to lost revenue as well as costly errors that could have been easily avoided.
Relying on paper-based methods to capture charges is quickly becoming archaic, and more and more practices are going paperless. Integrating charge capture software with an electronic medical record system is quickly becoming the norm in the healthcare field for maximized efficiency.
Identifying Missing Charges
Charge capture errors are responsible for 1 percent of lost net patient revenue, according to the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
“Despite perceptions that charges don’t ‘matter’ in a value-based payment, it is important to continue to focus on charge-based reimbursement as a salient portion of hospital revenue cycle,” according to the association.
Technology is here to stay. Artificial intelligence is also set to be next to come into the picture to improve charge capture, in addition to scheduling, registration and billing, among others. Having an efficient way to charge capture is now a basic foundation to ensure that your practice can keep up with the times and move forward.
