COVID-19 Puts a Spotlight on Billing DIY versus Outsourcing
June 17, 2020
As the economy starts to reopen and elective healthcare activities increase, hospital ancillary services, outreach programs, pathology practices, IDTF/remote patient monitoring companies, and independent labs must be ready to handle the volume surge. XiFin’s Lab Volume Index data indicates a steady upward trend in lab volume; routine testing has already rebounded to nearly 80% of pre-COVID levels, and COVID and antibody testing further increases current total volume to 130% of baseline, with some segments seeing upwards of 150% volume.
With skyrocketing unemployment figures and the resulting impact of the loss or change of health insurance, you can expect more missing or incorrect patient data, higher Medicaid volume, and an increasing number of uninsured patients. Are your revenue cycle management (RCM) processes, team, and technology ready? Are your cash collections going to suffer?
Diagnostic leaders should be on the lookout for:
- Volume spikes of unclean claims
- The amount of time and effort it takes to find and fix inaccurate patient data
- Growing client and patient balances
There is never an ideal time to consider whether to continue to manage the billing process yourself and invest more in your team or technology versus outsource it to an RCM provider. There are pros and cons for both approaches and specific situations where the benefits of one approach tend to outweigh the advantages of the other. In reality, as with most service and technology decisions, it isn’t a binary equation.
As the RCM industry leader that supports both approaches as well as hybrid solutions, XiFin is uniquely positioned to share a balanced perspective and thought process via our recent article, “Choosing to Outsource Your Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) or Do it Yourself?” Key Considerations.” We hope you find this information helpful as you and your team continue your COVID-19 response. If we can be of any assistance, please contact us.
