Efficient revenue cycle management is at the heart of your organization’s continuing success. Whether you use your own standalone RCM system at your facilities or you outsource this important task to a third party company via cloud computing, it pays to stay on top of emerging developments that pertain to the billing process.

Is your medical practice functioning as efficiently as it could be? Rather than hiring more support staff to take care of a problem with productivity, your best approach might be to evaluate your current software and computer system to make sure they are suitable for the practice.

The most successful medical practices don’t reach their position in the industry without paying close attention to all aspects of their revenue cycle. Of course, success is based on numerous factors and not just on the financial side of things at your organization. You may have assembled a group of highly dedicated medical professionals who are at the top of their game. You also have a large base of satisfied and loyal patients, many of whom also happen to refer new patients to you. What’s more, the demographics of the community you serve may even include many professionals with abundant resources and no problems paying their bills on time.

The key to maintaining good relations with your patients is to increase engagement, making them feel listened to and empowering them with access to information that will help them maintain their health. Many medical organizations with an eye toward boosting engagement will implement a patient portal with their electronic health records or EHR software. Read on to learn more about the patient engagement elements that your patients really want and how a portal will benefit your facility.

Not all patients can explain their situation very easily when they encounter a medical professional in the examination room. Communication problems can occur for a variety of reasons. The patient might be in pain or distress or is so filled with anxiety that it is hard to describe what is wrong. If they are not speaking in their native language, there could be some vocabulary or grammar issues that make it a bit harder for them to communicate the details of their malady.

Cloud-based electronic health records (EHR) afford many opportunities for cost containment and enhancing operational efficiencies. Unlike traditional recording keeping systems, web-based solutions are intuitive, scalable and enable rapid access to precise information, even when a file covers many years of encounters and complex cases. There are other reasons, like the ones below, to implement a cloud-based EHR.

When your medical practice was in its early stages, the most logical solution was to handle all the medical billing on your end. As your practice picked up more patients and you added more professionals to the staff, billing would naturally become a much larger and more complicated set of tasks than you were initially prepared for.

The following excerpt is from an article found on Revcycleintelligence.com. It was written by Jacqueline DiChiara. -------------------- Money talks and the healthcare industry is listening. Claims reimbursement was one of many weighty revenue cycle management topics the healthcare industry kept an ear out for this year. From the art of claims scrubbing to figuring out how to keep denial rates low, numerous questions nonetheless emerged over the past twelve months.

With the push to nationalize electronic health records (EHR), or at least expand EHR adoption rates, many small to mid-sized practices are considering their options. Deciding whether to choose an in-house system or cloud-based EHR depends on practice goals, staff resources, financial constraints, and specialty, among other things.

The following excerpt is from and article found on Healthcare IT News. It was written by Jessica Davis. ---------------- With the market for electronic health records predicted to be worth about $35.2 billion by 2019, the steady rise of data has increased the need to strengthen the software to make data more accessible, reduce errors and increase the ease of use.