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Instituting audits for charity applications

Patient Access Weekly Advisor, November 28, 2007

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Over the past year, officials at UNCHCS thoroughly examined every financial process. They considered customer service, financial viability, and staff burden, and they drew up realistic changes that would keep each of the system's priority interests in mind.

In many cases, they tore down the process structure and put up new walls from scratch.

When they completed their entire process redesign, all that was left was a strategy to monitor progress and report results, says Karen McCall, UNCHCS' vice president of public affairs and marketing.

"It was important for us as a system to [track our performance]," she says.

Officials made whole-scale changes to the manner in which the system screened patients for eligibility, assisted patients in the process, and alerted patients of the charity care program.

But the changes were no good if UNCHCS couldn't determine whether the new program worked.

UNCHCS designed and instituted an audit process for all charity care applications and began tracking the number of patients UNCHCS approved for financial assistance every quarter.

Almost immediately, UNCHCS recorded a 20% increase in the number of applications patients filled out.

"It was a definite and noticeable increase for us," says McCall. "It told us the process was working."

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