Yes, increased revenue from collections is often seen as a key benefit of adopting a multidisciplinary approach to revenue cycle management (RCM). Here are some reasons why:
1. Broader expertise - A multidisciplinary team can bring together expertise from fields like accounting, finance, operations, IT, and patient relations. This broader knowledge base can help identify more opportunities to improve billing and collections.
2. Increased focus on collections - A dedicated team focused on collections, which may include revenue cycle specialists, coders, billing staff, and collection agents, can apply a more intensive focus on maximizing collections.
3. Optimized processes - A multidisciplinary team can review end-to-end revenue cycle processes and identify ways to streamline, standardize, and automate in order to improve collections. This may include things like eliminating redundant steps, speeding up claims processing, and reducing denials and adjustments.
4. More effective follow up - A team approach with clear roles and responsibilities can lead to more effective and consistent follow up with payers and patients to resolve outstanding claims and balances. This follow up is key to actually collecting the revenue that has been billed.
5. Better data and analytics - Combining data and insights from different areas can allow a multidisciplinary team to more effectively monitor key performance metrics related to collections. They can then identify data-driven opportunities to boost collections rates.
So in summary, the collaboration, expertise, focus, process optimization, and data capabilities enabled by a multidisciplinary approach to RCM can all contribute to health systems achieving higher revenue from improved collections. But increased collections is just one of the potential benefits; other key goals like efficiency, accuracy, and patient satisfaction should also be considered.