Patient-friendly billing

A project to redesign hospital and physician bills is picking up steam as providers realize the benefits for financial and operational performance, and for patient satisfaction.

Who should pay for the uninsured?

Do hospitals charge the uninsured more? With more than 43 million Americans lacking health care coverage, all stakeholders are more challenged than ever to pay for charity care.

Big problem, many people, one goal. Improving patient financial services performance

A multispecialty organization, faced with growing patient complaints about its billing services, developed a large-scale plan to make the billing process more effective and efficient--a service recovery program. Strong organizational support, leadership commitment and vision, thorough planning and follow-through, and dedicated staff drove the project to surpass expectations.

Achieving success with billing and collections

Practices of all sizes and specialties cite reimbursement management as a continuing issue of concern. This article identifies seven categories where practices can develop or tighten processes to achieve improved billing and collections success. Established and developing practices alike can use these categories and components to perform an internal check-up. In addition, this approach can act as a prompt for investigating new tools to support internal efficiency.

Billing basics for physician assistants and nurse practitioners

In recent years, physicians have increasingly looked to nonphysician practitioners (NPPs) as a resource for delivering care to patients. While historically more prevalent in primary care groups, nonphysician practitioners have expanded their presence within medical subspecialty and surgical groups as well. Along with planning for appointment scheduling, credentialing, and introducing the nonphysician provider to patients and referring physicians, the savvy practice will thoroughly review how services for a nonphysician can and should be billed. In this article, we focus our attention on basic Medicare billing parameters for physician assistants and nurse practitioners, two types of nonphysician practitioners.

The revenue cycle from the patient's perspective

Hospitals can improve cash flow by focusing on the patient's view of hospital billing. Take steps to ensure that patients understand what is expected from them financially. Use large type fonts and large amounts of white space to make bills more readable.

Adopting ideal standards to optimize PFS performance

Establishing effective methods for measuring performance can help the patient financial services department detect and resolve billing problems, utilize resources, and ensure staff accountability. Criteria used to track performance should consider all areas that influence accounts receivable (A/R), cash flow, days in A/R, and bad debt. Directors should implement mechanisms to track appropriate functions on a weekly basis. External standards should be incorporated into department goals. Consideration should be given to payer mix, upfront collection philosophy, and available resources when comparing one's facility with others.

Patient friendly billing project: putting the patient first

Freeing the consumer from the confusion of the current billing and payment process is a key long-term goal of the Patient Friendly Billing Project. This project is a joint effort of HFMA and the American Hospital Association, and with support from HCA; Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois; Quorum Health Resources, Nashville, Tennessee; SSM HealthCare, St. Louis, Missouri; Cap Gemini Ernst & Young; Deloitte & Touche/Deloitte Consulting/Ernst & Young; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Stevens & Lee, Reading, Pennsylvania; Greenwich Hospital, Greenwich, Connecticut; Medical Group Management Association; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and HFMA's PFS Forum Advisory Council. If the goal of this project is achieved, the healthcare industry can gain from both improved consumer relations and cost-efficient outcomes that benefit all involved.

Improvements in billing processes and information systems increase cash collections in a public health care system

Management information systems are an essential tool for health care managers. Denver Health, an integrated safety net institution, upgraded its financial management information system during 1997 and experienced almost an 18 percent or $23 million increase in cash collections from 1997 to 1998 and a 17 percent or over $25 million increase from 1998 to 1999. Cash collections continued to increase in 2000 with a $12.0 million (6.8%) ncrease over 1999. This article explains the information system factors that have contributed to this increase and describes the continued management efforts that are expected to continue to improve cash collections.