3 Keys to an Effective Outreach Laboratory’s Revenue Cycle

This past week,  Mayo Medical Laboratories hosted a conference, Leveraging the Laboratory: The Power of Outreach, for their client laboratories to discover new and unique solutions to combat the most common challenges for outreach labs.

This conference was very beneficial and thought-provoking as health system executives, industry experts, and hands-on managers gathered to learn about how to harness their outreach program to position their organization for success in the dynamic healthcare environment. I feel that labs left the event empowered with the ability to create a strategic vision and develop an actionable plan to achieve outreach program success.

Of the many interesting topics covered, one in specific was “Keys to an Effective Outreach Laboratory Revenue Cycle” with Peter Duda, Manager of Revenue Cycle, Mayo Medical Laboratories.

Peter did an excellent job outlining the billing challenges outreach labs face and the tools needed to overcome the challenges and transform the billing process.  At the start of the billing process, Peter discussed the upfront nuances of obtaining complete and accurate billing information and the value of using an integrated, online client portal to interact with the ordering clients on their time to obtain any missing or updated information in an automated fashion.  Towards the end of the billing process, Peter described his team’s method of working “yesterday’s errors today” and the need to have a system that provides visibility into denial trends in order to configure upfront edits to prevent the same future denials.  After leaving this session, I feel attendees now have the knowledge to implement an action plan for their outreach lab billing going forward, including the following recommendations for success:

• Robust and flexible billing system capable of maintaining the ever-changing lab-specific upfront payor edits
• Revenue cycle / billing staff, in-house or outsourced, that are focused specifically on lab claims to ensure the lab claims are not being ignored and written off
• Laboratory specific reporting and analytics package that allows the lab to identify trends and track key performance indicators at the test, CPT, and ordering client levels.

Interested in connecting with XiFin to learn more about our outreach laboratory information system, click here.