How does a registration department change to meet these increasing consumer demands?
With process, technology, and people.
Process
Work flow and business processes must drive change. Whether the process evaluation is driven internally or externally from consultants, it is the critical factor for long-term viability and success. Without this key element, any technology you implement or staff you hire are doomed for failure. Every hospital must look at their back-end processes and determine those that can be brought to the front-end. Processes and when they should happen include:
Pre-access
- Comprehensive demographic, insurance, and clinical data gathering;
- Insurance eligibility and benefit verification;
- Managed care screening and processing;
- Patient financial education, counseling, self-pay management;
- Medicaid/charity assessment;
- Risk assessment;
- Pricing estimation.
Time of service
- HIM processing;
- Edit identification and resolution;
- Financial risk assessment;
- POS collection.
Post-service
- Bill transmission/transaction posting;
- Exception monitoring.
Technology
The national average for registration errors is 31%. This translates into almost one out of every three registrations having serious enough errors to delay payment and possibly cause denials or write-offs, with the majority of those errors caused by incomplete or outdated patient information. To know your patients' financial health and assist them in the appropriate resolution of their obligations at the point of service, you need to have an accurate, complete, and single view of the patient.
While there are myriad vendors and products available, the key to technological efficiency is eliminating bolt-on applications by looking for one product that addresses the majority of your revenue cycle issues. A robust platform would integrate with your HIS, allow customization to adhere to your business rules, and be flexible to change. In addition, it is nearly impossible for your registrars to remember every nuance of your business rules and the registration process. Therefore, an ideal platform would script and guide the registrar through the process, alerting them to issues that need immediate attention, making sure that every patient is registered correctly every time. Using real-time verification as stated above with pricing estimation that evaluates the combination of contracts, charges, and patient benefits easily, efficiently, and consistently allows your staff to present the estimated charges with confidence.
People
Registration staff are no longer just greeters and paper-pushers. They now have a critical role in revenue cycle management. Registrars need to be trained on the procedural changes, the importance of accurate information at the point of registration, and empowered to ask for payment with confidence. To create a positive point-of-service education and collections program for your staff you need to:
- collaboratively create a vision and a goal for collections with your staff;
- provide a staff incentive program;
- create awareness in your organization and the community;
- script for consistency and objection handling.
So what do patients, who are scared about their medical procedure and anxious about how much the procedure is going to cost, want at registration? They are looking to you for comfort. They are looking to you for information on their financial obligation. They want to know financial counseling options available to them before they have the procedure. By providing clear, correct, and concise information with high-quality health care and service excellence, you establish trust and confidence, which equates to increased patient satisfaction, patient retention, and an improved revenue cycle.
Kari Kemper is marketing communications manager for Provider Advantage NW Inc. With a focus on the health care and health care IT industries, Kemper has a 15-year record of accomplishment characterized by successful brand identity creation and management, marketing strategy development, marketing campaign delivery, and public relations.
Work flow and business processes must drive change. Whether the process evaluation is driven internally or externally from consultants, it is the critical factor for long-term viability and success.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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