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Mr. Johnson was the chief financial officer (CFO) of a 222-bed teaching hospital in southern California. Mr. Johnson recognized a lot of problems with the processes within the various revenue cycle departments he managed which impacted cash flow for the facility.  Mr. Johnson met with the hospital chief executive officer (CEO) to express his concerns and the fact that he felt his existing staff did not have the expertise to fix many of the problems they were facing.

Ms. Thomas, the hospital CEO, agreed with Mr. Johnson’s evaluations and concerns and the two prepared a package for the Board of Supervisors to submit a request for proposal to several revenue cycle improvement vendors.  This request was approved by the Board and sent to several vendors with known successful track records in this area.  During the next several weeks the responses were evaluated and a final vendor selected.

It was determined through a Revenue Cycle Performance Evaluation completed by the vendor prior to the kick-off of the engagement that the largest opportunity for improved cash would be to address the bottlenecks in the cash flow, the excessive days in accounts receivable, the backlogged accounts in denied claims and improved process through the entire revenue cycle at this public hospital.

When the engagement began, the net days in accounts receivable were 103 and the time from discharge to final bill was 33 days. The vendor was engaged for a four-year period to provide cash acceleration and revenue cycle improvement on a “pay for performance” [P4P] fee structure.  A historical review of the hospital’s financial data determined an average monthly collection amount (baseline) the hospital was achieving each month prior to the start of this engagement.  The P4P fee structure required the vendor to reach the baseline each month before the hospital was required to pay any profession fees for the services of the vendor.

KEY ISSUES:

What could the hospital do to realize immediate benefits with regard to:

– accelerated cash flow?

– reduced days in accounts receivables?

– streamlined revenue cycle processes?

– better trained existing staff?

– return on investment?

MORE: Rev Cycle Mgmnt

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Filed under: "Ask-an-Advisor", Experts Invited, Practice Management | Tagged: cash conversion cycles, hospital revenue cycles, P4P, Revenue Cycle Performance Evaluation | 2 Comments »