Revenue cycle solutions leader Meduit has been on the ground at hospital industry conferences in Georgia with hospital and health system executives where we got an earful about their RCM concerns, including:
- Bad debt
- Insurance collection
- Self-pay
- Pre-arrival collections
Bret Whatley, Regional VP of Sales, Southeast for Meduit, represented Meduit at two Georgia conferences in early May. On May 2, Bret attended the Georgia AAHAM & HFMA Spring Education Session event in Atlanta, which included an afternoon trip to an Atlanta Braves game. May 8-10 found Bret at the Georgia HFMA Spring Institute at beautiful Lake Oconee, near Greensboro, Georgia, where he met with a number of hospital and health system executives regarding their RCM needs.
“Collections are starting earlier and earlier in the process,” Bret said. “There were several vendors present at the Georgia HFMA Spring Institute event who work in the patient financing and payment processing space. Vendors are moving to lend money to patients to help them pay their medical bills, and they are offering more options to pay pre-arrival. Going forward I expect that we’ll continue to see patient payments moving upfront.”
The biggest topic at the Georgia HFMA Spring Institute centered around payors simply refusing to pay a claim even with preauthorization established. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that approximately one in seven health insurance claims are initially denied even though the claims are completely valid. Two separate panels addressed this issue and its impact on hospitals and health systems.
“Another discussion centered around hospitals not having enough staff or resources to expand their collection efforts,” Bret said. “Without the technology to support that work, hospital staff can be hard pressed to do more, and that’s where Meduit can come in and support accelerated cash flow by bringing in our technology.”