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• Cash Flow Management & the Revenue Cycle
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• Profit Recovery Service
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Cash Flow Management & the Revenue Cycle

The revenue cycle includes the following; Patient Scheduling → Registration → Coding → Charge Capture → Billing (patients and insurance providers) → Follow-up & Collections

This process must be managed and monitored in order to eliminate waste, realize revenue and obtain the cash flow on a timely basis.

While these cycle steps are distinct steps in the flow over time each has factors that play into the success or failure of maximizing revenue. After all it is no good to maximize revenue earned if it is not collected and it is no good to collect revenue if it is done in a way that alienates and reduces repeat business and therefore future revenue and it is no good to do both but spend more than what is brought in. It is the sum of quality care and service, patient flow, revenue flow, collections and expense management that makes a practice successful over time. Even that is not enough if all components are not done consistently so office managers need to reduce waste, maintain consistency through documented policies and procedures and with knowledge of all variable costs at an activity level.

Do you know what it costs to have a patient visit you? Does that include scheduling, a percentage of no-shows, registration and intake, care, documentation, billing and claims filing and follow-up? How much do you pay per year in overtime for the staff? How much of that overtime is due to staff absenteeism? Understaffing?

Have you ever done any formal process improvement projects to reduce waste as defined by non-value-added steps?

You need to measure your results of the components of the revenue cycle, benchmark them against reasonable goals, explain the variances and then act to implement improvements.

After all is said and done the profit of your practice can be increased with a combination of several factors just to name some:

• Reduction in rejected claims
• Reduction in write-offs
• Reduction in average accounts receivable age
• Increase in revenue per employee
• Reduced overtime expense
• Increased patient visits per provider
• Reduced cost per patient visit
• Increased patient visits
• Increase in patient population
• Reduction in staff hours per provider
• Reduction in patient no-shows

These factors and more influence the bottom line of the practice and those requiring improvement must be addressed while other areas are not let to slip at the same time. As a practice owner in order to be successful financially you must:

1. Set clear, measurable goals
2. Measure actual results against those goals regularly and objectively
3. Explain variances to goal results
4. Take action as needed to improve areas falling short of goals
5. Keep financial results balanced with patient satisfaction
6. Pursue ways to grow the practice efficiently