This Ask an Advisor episode of the Insights podcast features MGMA Sr. Advisor Cristy Good.
In this episode Good focuses on revenue cycle best practices. She points to her top five KPIs and how medical practices can best utilize them. Additionally, Good shares revenue cycle learning opportunities for anyone interested in improving know-how and gaining CE credits.
Don’t quite have time to listen to the entire episode? No worries. We’ve compiled an assortment of highlights for your convenience:
(3:25) (On what types of questions are asked in the community chat area) Anything from the beginning to the end of revenue cycle has been asked. And I usually just get people to take a step back and make sure that they're really looking at their process for a revenue cycle. And to make sure that they're looking at specific key performance indicators, so that they aren't just reacting to the situation. And they're taking a step back to be proactive and look at the big picture.
(4:25) (On what the most important KPIs Good suggests practice managers review) There's a top five that I would say that a practice should at least start with. And that's looking at your AR days and your AR aging by certain buckets. So your first one would be looking at, ‘What are my aging AR?’ by 0-30 days, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120, and then 121+. So that's your first kind of bucket of KPIs to look at. And that's just one of my top five. My others would be, ‘What are your claims denial rate?’. So, looking at that - your bad debt - which is your days in AR. But there's other bad debt, so you have AR that are in an aging bucket, but then you also have bad debt. And then looking at your charge posting and billing lag time. That's important. Are you getting things posted timely? And then are you getting billed out timely? And also your payer mix. So keeping an eye on your payer mix is important, and those would be my top five, though, I definitely have like 10 more that I think people should keep an eye on.
(6:38) (On how to manage time and create buy-in to access and review KPIs) Most of these (you) should be able to get from whatever your EHR is, or your finance department … and then taking that time to make sure that you share this with staff and your physicians. Because if everyone knows what's going on, that helps everyone kind of brainstorm and be part of the solution instead of feeling like they're just being asked to do more with less, or cut costs, or see more patients when they feel like they're at their max already. So just keep being very open and transparent with this and sharing it monthly.
To listen to Good's February 2023 Ask an Advisor interview, click here.
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The MGMA Insights podcasts are produced by Daniel Williams, Camille Burch, and Rob Ketcham.
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Humana: The latest Value-Based Care Report from Humana outlines many interesting findings and highlights how some physician practices found creative paths to success. Check it out now at Humana.com/VBC. Humana is working closely with physician practices on their value-based journeys.
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