XiFin RPM Helps Lab Outreach Business Grow Collections by 15%

Mona Dinnauer is the Laboratory Director, Outreach Services, at MercyOne Des Moines Laboratory, which is part of Des Moines Medical Center. The facility was founded in 1893 and is the longest continually operating hospital in Des Moines, Iowa, and is a member of the MercyOne network, a collaboration of CommonSpirit Health and Trinity Health.

The laboratory’s full-service outreach business started 30 years ago. Today it has 230 employees and eight contracted pathologists serving 350 clients. Their clients include hospitals, nursing homes, physician practices, the hospital’s physician groups, and various specialized groups. The lab performs 3 million tests per year, of which 1 million is outreach. They have grown their volumes by about 8% in the past 10 years.

With complex billing needs, the laboratory had always used the hospital’s billing system. However, when the hospital transitioned from an in-house to a contracted billing service, the laboratory lost visibility into its outreach business because payments were posted as bulk.

“It was hard for us to tell which clients were profitable and which were not, so it was difficult to make good decisions because of the lack of good information,” Dinnauer recently told Laboratory Economics during a spotlight interview.

To remedy her challenging billing situation, she contacted XiFin and soon went live with XiFin RPM, a comprehensive, highly automated revenue cycle management solution. After taking into account decreased payments as a result of PAMA, she estimated an increase of about 15% in collections from the lab’s prior billing system.

“We’ll also be utilizing XiFin to report our private payor data to CMS under PAMA requirements,” Dinnauer said.

Today, Dinnauer said her lab is now working on developing a sales team, which is a new strategy for the lab. Also, they have hired some additional staff members and are adding sales and marketing functions to their business strategy, which is securing new clients and growing revenue.

For more information, read “Spotlight Interview with MercyOne’s Mona Dinnauer.”

If you’re ready to find out how our market-leading revenue cycle management solution, XiFin RPM, can help your organization, contact us. We’re ready to help you.