How STI Can Help with Revenue Cycle Management
The demands of running a modern medical practice require even more office staff time than was the case 5 years ago. There is just more work to do. It’s not just managing insurance claims, referrals, and authorizations, but new programs like Electronic Medical Records, e-Prescribing requirements, HIPAA, and PQRS require your staff to collect and manage more patient information to avoid financial penalties.
A recent Medical Economics article stated that, “As doctors have to meet more and more requirements to get paid, they need to rely heavily on their staff to collect and enter data that insurers will review and use to determine payments”. As one of our customers said to us, “We just couldn’t keep up!”
Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) is about your people working more productively on items that matter, and improving their quality of work. For example, sitting on hold for 30 minutes or longer on an insurance payer phone line is low-quality work and not very satisfying to the person doing the job. Helping a patient solve a problem is high quality work that is less stressful and more satisfying. You and your staff can have more time to work on important patient and practice related items, and can concentrate on the clinical side of your medical practice.
STI Revenue Cycle Management begins with a division of work between everyone involved through the shared use of the STI ChartMaker Practice Management and EHR software. The key to success is the sharing of ChartMaker’s advanced software technology by all parties (STI, your practice, and an RCM Partner) in a cooperative manner and the division of specialized labor so that you concentrate on issues that you do best (patient registration, scheduling appointments, and the patient/physician encounter). The RCM Partner concentrates on using ChartMaker’s software technology and their extensive billing and collection knowledge to process claims, and follow-up with insurance carriers to collect and post payments to maximize your revenue. This is a cooperative Revenue Cycle Management approach designed to collect the maximum, legal reimbursement from payers and patients in the shortest possible time. RCM typically results in increased revenue collected, more compensation for physician owners, reduced practice costs, especially for computer technology, integration of Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology and more time for patient care. I know that it probably sounds too good to be true in today’s complicated medical environment, but it is happening now in STI medical practices throughout the region.
A brochure is available on request and information is available on our website and in our YouTube videos. For more information call us at 800-487-9135 extension 1188 or email jcerra@sticomputer.com.