Terri Embry
Aug 29 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Is your organization aiming for growth, expanding your team, acquiring other companies, or satisfying stakeholder expectations? Achieving these goals depends on having an efficient cash collection system. Without it, your organization may struggle to meet its objectives.
Discussing cash collection might feel uncomfortable, but it’s essential to bridge the gap between providing services and collecting payments. What often creates this gap? The primary issue is missing clinical documentation.
The impact of missing clinical documentation
When claims are delayed due to incomplete documentation, your revenue is effectively on hold. One significant industry challenge is the variability in requirements among different payors. For instance, the same diagnosis requiring the same medication can have different documentation needs depending on the payor. This means organizations must withhold submitting claims until all documentation requirements are met. Additional areas that drive held revenue relate to nursing notes and expiring orders.
Manual paper processes and disjointed communication worsen this issue. Relying on phone calls, emails, faxes, or physically obtaining signatures is time-consuming. Moving signed documents from where they were signed to the office and into the chart takes time and usually requires several people. It diverts clinicians from patient care, office staff from their primary duties and salespeople from generating new business.
Leveraging technology for improved efficiency
The right technology can streamline your processes. By defining a clear journey for patient consent and assignment of benefits, teaching checklist, order forms and setting up notifications for signatures, required documentation can be completed promptly. This enables prompt claim submissions and faster cash collection.
The more efficient your documentation process, the less revenue you have on hold. Here are two major financial impacts of missing clinical documentation and how they can be avoided:
- Deductions caused by payor audits
Imagine thinking you’re on budget for the year, only to face a $200,000 deduction due to a payor audit that found unsigned orders. Payor audits seek any discrepancies to reclaim funds, including overlooked nursing notes or forgotten consent forms. Technology that facilitates seamless communication between you and your patients ensures thorough and accurate documentation, so clinicians can focus on providing superior care and give you confidence that supporting documentation for the claims submitted can be easily obtained and quickly found during an audit. - Failure to keep patients on service
Securing referral sources and patients is a significant effort. A streamlined referral qualification process and obtaining the right documentation is vital to this success. Providing quality care is crucial to maintaining these relationships. When patients are not adequately informed about their referral status, medication, potential side effects, or other aspects of their care, they may end up hospitalized, completing their care elsewhere, or being referred to another organization.
Efficient consent and clinical documentation help prevent such interruptions in care. However, when clinical staff are bogged down by phone tag, voicemails, paper and overflowing email inboxes, critical intervention opportunities can be missed. The right technology reduces unnecessary administrative tasks, freeing up time for patient care.
Efficient operations drive business growth
Securing a contract with a referral partner can be great for your business. But if your operations aren’t efficient enough to handle the increased business and cash collection demands, you might not keep the contract for long.
To sustain and grow your business, you need to deliver excellent care, document thoroughly and accurately, and ensure timely cash collection. With CitusHealth, your organization can benefit from seamless communication and an app-less solution for forms and documents. Automated education management combines all touchpoints into a single platform.
We invite you to discover how CitusHealth can enhance your operational efficiency, so you can focus on delivering superior care and expanding your business.
Schedule a demo with us today.
