risks

Article Dean Dorton

You know the drill – the longer you go unpaid the harder it is to collect but your medical practice needs every dollar accounted for to keep running efficiently and effectively.

Dean Dorton Healthcare Solutions empowers clients in five important ways:

  1. Responsiveness: How often do you have a claim that gets older than 60 days? By co-sourcing A/R cleanup with the Dean Dorton Healthcare Solutions team, instead of worrying about that unpaid claim, you can focus on big picture, overall financial and operational goals. Hate dealing with A/R entirely? Our team can be your A/R resource in a variety of capacities.
  2. Reporting: Quality A/R cleanup requires detailed and accurate reporting and coding to get claims paid. Our experienced team brings the knowledge from many different backgrounds, specialties, and systems to give your practice the best-in-class service.
  3. Analyzing: Our team can easily model calculations so you understand what is working with your A/R, what is not working, and where you can maximize benefits.
  4. Forecasting: By identifying what is happening with A/R we can quickly generate forecasts to influence and inform decisions by functional managers, senior management, and board members.
  5. Big picture: Your revenue cycle is about more than just A/R, but A/R plays an important role in maximizing your strategic plans that exploit business opportunities and sidestep risks.

To get started, take a look at your medical practice’s current A/R and identify weaknesses. Did you have any of the following happen in the last six to nine months?

  • Staff turnover
  • A systems change
  • Numerous bad claims
  • Are you generally behind due to COVID-19?

If the answer is yes to any of these, it’s worth your time to explore your options as it relates to A/R and cleanup projects.

Learn more

Christie Atzinger, CPC
Medical Billing and Consulting Services Manager
catzinger@deandortonstg.wpenginepowered.com • 502.916.3130

Article Dean Dorton

During the past several months, we’ve heard directly from clients that COVID-19 has not only changed the operational and financial performance of community hospitals, but the last year has also opened eyes to numerous risks that were previously unknown or thought to be of little importance.

1. “We didn’t know that XYZ person didn’t have a back-up.”
Team member absence due to illness or quarantine quickly exposed the fact that some people or departments were spread too thin and/or didn’t have trained reliable back-up processes and staffing in place. Long term absences created backlogs and a lack of documented policies and procedures made it nearly impossible for others to assume the workload. This was true in supply chain, materials management, clinical departments, accounting, and others.

2. “Our technology infrastructure wasn’t prepared to support significant amounts of telecommuting and/or telemedicine.”
Many team members, and in fact entire departments were forced to work remotely for much of the last year, and in some instances continuing to do so. Has your technology team been able to support that shift? Are you comfortable with data security measures and productivity monitoring with increased telecommuting? Has your telehealth strategy been fully optimized? Many departments experienced decreases in productivity which lead to financial impacts and patient dissatisfaction.

3. “Revenue cycle departments have been scrambling to stay afloat and strategic investments and improvements have been delayed.”
In many instances, community hospitals have seen A/R aging worsen, staffing has experienced significant turnover or furlough, and now that volumes are coming back, the team cannot keep up. It is very difficult to stay current while also addressing the backlogs that have developed. Don’t let predictable cash collections and days in A/R mask underlying trends or potential backlogs within the revenue cycle. Outsourced vendors were also impacted by COVID. Evaluate their performance to determine if potential improvement opportunities exist.

If these or any other similar revelations sound familiar to your organization, it may be prudent to conduct an enterprise-wide risk assessment or begin the process of prioritizing risks based on financial, operational, and compliance impact.

Adam Shewmaker, FHFMA
Healthcare Consulting Director
ashewmaker@ddafhealthcare.com • 502.566.1054