Revenue Cycle

Q: Can anyone share some initiatives, agenda items, and accomplishments of your revenue cycle team or A/R task force?

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, December 17, 2004

A: The main goal of our A/R team, created a few years ago, was to reduce our A/R days from highs in the 80s to at most 60. We have been running 48-53 days over past few months.

Our most current project is the customization of our face sheet to pull the information we needed for different departments. It helps us on the back end, and our physicians benefit from more information as well.

Changes include the following:

  • We pull the case manager (i.e., if the patient is classified as diabetic, maternal/newborn, or cardiac)
  • It now offers a yes or no option if the patient has an advanced directive
  • It includes more insurance/employer information
  • It now offers a yes or no option if the patient received his or her Notice of Privacy Practices and the date
  • The patient service code is clearer-medical, surgical, radiology, lab, rehab, etc.
  • We list whether patient is an isolation patient
  • It includes more information on spouse and emergency contacts

    We also launched a similar label project for each account. We now list the service code and patient type, and we moved items around to make it easier to read. Birthday and age are now together on one line.

    This question was answered by Laurie Gaffney, director of the business office, Buena Vista Regional Medical Center, Storm Lake, IA.

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