Client:
Federally Qualified Health Clinic in metropolitan Washington, D.C., serving 55,000 patients at sites around the area. Approximately 300,000 patient visits annually.
Challenge:
For several years, our client operated its patient accounting department with six employees and one manager. Revenue hovered around $550, 000, and system reporting was poor. The aged trial balance was overstated. Staff morale was low. The patient accounting staff believed that their practice management system was the source of their problems.
FH Community Health was tasked with increasing revenue by 20% and generating meaningful system-generated monthly reports.
Solution:
The FH Community Health's management team created a Patient Accounting Co-Sourcing solution, targeting a set of key priorities. FHCH determined to:
- Provide timely billing and rebilling all new claims;
- Accurately post all transactions;
- Investigate outstanding receivable and write off stale claims and contractuals;
- Identify billing issues such as credentialing that require senior management intervention; and
- Deploy electronic eligibility databases to identify registration errors.
Results:
Within the first 90 days, FH Community Health met the targeted cash collection goals.
Over the past three years, FH Community Health has increased the client's net collections by more than 100%. Today, our client's aged trial balance is accurate, and the chief financial officer receives timely monthly reports—all while using the same practice management system.
FH Community Health has advanced beyond the original engagement to assume responsibility for a portion of the client's patient scheduling. Within three weeks of taking over this function, lines outside the main clinic disappeared as clinicians began to see mostly scheduled patients.
In addition, the client now also relies on FH Community Health to verify third party information and check patients with scheduled appointments against eligibility databases to accelerate the billing process.