Since the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals and other healthcare facilities became severely overwhelmed by the increased number of hospitalizations, hampering the healthcare service industry. Many facilities have reduced salaries and laid-off employees. They're now looking for money from a mentally and financially drained patient base.
What we're seeing is a jumble of legislative changes, greater patient-as-payer burdens, increasing reliance on automation, and massive cultural transformations that have staff working from home. Healthcare providers must employ a diverse approach based on educated agents, data-driven analytics, and high-quality customer service to address the immediate issues and embrace the challenges that lie ahead. Technology plays a critical role to address these issues.
COVID-19 has driven significant trends in RCM, giving us a jumbled mess of regulatory changes, rising patient-as-a-payer burdens, and an ever-growing reliance on automation.
Find Out What Chief Nursing Officers Feel About Supply and Demand
Why Automation Poses Many Challenges And Opportunities
Many healthcare facilities have opted for automation during COVID-19 to create more efficiency and cut costs. Hospitals and centers are using these healthcare IT tools to increase revenue and make more profit. The increase of self-paying patients was further driven by the pandemic. More patients are selecting high deductible health plans (HDHPs), which charge low monthly premiums but have high deductibles.
Patients are either self-paying for their care entirely or partially through HDHP memberships, both of which increase strains on collections. This has put a strain on patient livelihood and health insurance sectors as well. Many Americans lost their jobs over the course of the pandemic, and providers are working against overextended patients. Providers are automating more component systems reporting RCM automation. Still, processes like claims management and follow-up communications largely remain manual due to the challenges around executing workflows that require collaboration between multi-party systems, which are constantly undergoing configuration changes by their own internal teams.
There are many factors to the improvement of automation within RCM. As it continues, we may see the fragmentation of the U.S. healthcare system, new risk arrangements quickly replacing fee-for-service models, and an ever-growing diversification of RCM and claims software. Because of these factors, human intervention is key in making sure providers are being reimbursed and compensated in a timely manner. Efficient coordination with payers on denied or misdirected claims and concise coordination with patients to acquire or make preparations to seize their out-of-pocket obligations will hold to require specialized providers who require specialized vendors who focus on handling healthcare contact center services.
Other Digital Solutions And Staffing Tools
Surprisingly, there are no new big-name RCM companies that are taking on all of these challenges in a comprehensive way. Of course, there are multiple solutions to solve the revenue and staffing issues. Healthcare technology continues to improve and benefit healthcare providers. Overall, these digital tools, platforms, and systems continue to grow in importance.
For example, telehealth has created new opportunities to address challenges that can range from overcoming barriers to patient access to supporting patient acquisition and retention to mitigating physicians’ workload and more. Telehealth is suitable for all devices and creates a quality of service equal to in-person care. Tools like these create more revenue while decreasing the burden and stress on patients paying. The digitization of health information led to the rise of healthcare big data. The emergence of value-based care also contributes to the emergence of healthcare big data by spurring the industry to employ data analytics to make informed business decisions.
Digital healthcare tools reduce medication errors. By analyzing patient records, the software can find inconsistencies between a patient's health and prescriptions and then notify health professionals and patients of a potential medication error. Another benefit that has been mentioned before is aiding in preventative care. A large volume of recurring patients rush to emergency rooms. Using big data analysis can help identify this type of patient and develop preventive plans to keep them from returning.
How Digital Tools Can Help Facilities Staff Clinicians
And last but not least, digital care can help improve staffing more accurately. Digital staffing tools heavily improved staff scheduling and new hires. Healthcare staffing apps, like Nursa™, allow nurses to easily find new jobs with the click of a button. This lifts so much stress off of the managers and administration of many healthcare facilities across the nation and gives you the strength you need to stay one step ahead of the current industry issues.
What Is Nursa™?
Nursa™ is here to help nurses and healthcare facilities managers put ease into the hiring process and staff scheduling. Nurses, CNAs, and allied healthcare workers can upload and verify their license, and skip the entire interview-hiring process. This allows healthcare facility administrators to easily find and hire new nurses to fill in those empty positions. Download Nursa™ today.
