The challenges of revenue cycle past continue to haunt us, and are certain to only become more urgent in the near future.
We’ve come to the end of another calendar—each year the ride seems to go faster! With the holidays upon us, we can count on portrayals of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. It’s inevitable, too, at this time of year that the voices of our industry look to where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going in healthcare. The long list includes:
- Financial pressures due to shrinking margins
- Revenue leakage through denials, underpayments, and uncompensated care
- Poor patient engagement, particularly in this era of patient-as-payer
Moody’s forecast for the nonprofit healthcare sector is gloomy; “the 2019 outlook will remain negative for the next 12-18 months.” Flat or declining operating cash flows and a rise in bad debt are cited as two of the issues contributing to the projection.
Enrollment in high deductible health plans continues to grow, causing patient responsibility to often exceed the patient’s ability to pay.
While the costs of uncompensated care did decline between 2013 and 2015, the trend since then has been upward. According to Definitive Healthcare data, "hospital bad debt totaled nearly $80 billion in 2017, with an average bad debt to net patient revenue of just over 25%.”
A list of the negative prognoses could go on and on, and like Scrooge, we want to shout, “Haunt me no longer!”
The challenges are all too familiar, but as they grow in magnitude it becomes clearer that they cannot be solved by relying on the same old strategies and tactics.
With that in mind, Quadax has been working diligently this year on new real-world solutions to some of our clients’ biggest revenue cycle obstacles, and we’re excited to bring those forward in 2019. The first of these is Decision Intelligence by Quadax. Data abounds in the provider business environment—but how do you use it effectively to alter the course of projected doom? DI is the tool you need to leverage actionable data—to gain insight, to achieve efficiency gains, and to improve financial performance.
A highlight in January is the Quadax webinar, “Denial Management was last year. 2019 is about Denial Disruption Solutions.” Our presenter, Lyman Sornberger, CEO and President of Lyman Healthcare Solutions, LLC, has thirty years’ distinguished executive experience, shares the future of healthcare denial management and the new world of denial disruption.
Ebenezer Scrooge observed to the Ghost of Christmas Future that while a course may foreshadow certain ends, if the course is changed, the ends will change, as well. In keeping with our mission, Quadax is determined to change the course of revenue cycle management to help providers gain control and improve financial outcomes with new approaches to tackling the issues of the past, present, and future.
As we enter the holiday season and prepare for new things to come, all of us at Quadax are thankful for another year of working with our clients and partners and working alongside our colleagues and friends. We wish you and your families great joy and peace in all your celebrations.
Cheers!
