Strategies to create a thriving revenue cycle, improve patient volumes and utilization of clinical personnel, optimize supply chain costs, and balance Investment Priorities
As hospital and health system CFOs prepare for the post-pandemic world, they are witnessing an unprecedented labor crisis and a spiraling backlog of A/R volumes that will bring down the entire organization. Cost pressures, shifts in payer mix, rising consumerism, and declining reimbursements add to their woes. Patient visits have been unpredictable in the post-pandemic world.
This article discusses some of the current headwinds and provides strategies that CFOs can utilize to help their organizations grow and thrive. They must take a comprehensive look at their existing cost structures and operational challenges to implement transformational strategies.
Outsourcing revenue cycle processes can address several challenges, including access to qualified labor, managing RCM processes by the numbers, and giving you access to advance technology and analytics tools. Some of these challenges go beyond the scope of the revenue cycle and seek to improve the cost of operations through optimization of the supply chain and to improve clinical staff utilization.
The Fight for Survival – Understanding the Plight of Rural Healthcare Facilities
Many rural hospitals are on the verge of shutting down. A Becker’s Hospital Review article based on the Bipartisan Policy Center report states that as many as 441 rural hospitals out of 2,176 hospitals are on the verge of reducing services or closing altogether. Between 2010 and 2019, there were 116 rural hospital closures.
The report further states that the federal programs during the Public Health Emergency (PHE) may have temporarily helped struggling rural healthcare facilities, but financial challenges remain. Once the federal support ends, the facilities that were struggling before the pandemic will again be at the risk of closure. There is a need to revisit the Medicare Dependent Hospital (MDH) and Sole Community Hospital (SCH) reimbursement models in-line with rising costs.
While some of the issues cited above are specific to rural hospitals, the facilities in metropolitan areas face headwinds of declining reimbursements, rising costs of operations, and great resignation. Overall, the prices of care are shifting to higher levels, and hospital CFOs must find ways to reduce the cost of operations.