3 Big Ways to Cut Costs & Improve Cash Flow
When it comes to health care in general, the costs are one of the biggest obstacles that everyone faces. People struggle to keep up with changes, and to keep track of what type of coverage they have, and where. The same goes for programs like Medicaid, which struggle to keep up with where all of the spending is going. In order to keep improve cash flow for your organization, for both the patients and the programs that insure some of these patients, it is important to know how to cut costs within your organization, which will ultimately give you more cash to be able to work with, as needed.
1. Upgrade Your Patient Intake Processes
Most hospitals agree: the process of gathering patient deductibles, eligibility authorizations and other crucial information is outdated at best. Leveraging RCM technology to collect and process this data needs to happen at the point of intake lest you lose touch with patients once they’ve left the building. Updating this process also allows you to educate your patients by informing them about their obligations and allowing them to ask valuable questions. These methods foster a critical relationship between you and your patients, thereby improving the overall quality of care you provide and boosting cash flow down the line.
2. Consolidate Management Duties
One of the biggest ways that organizations lose money is by having multiple people performing the same job. If you can avoid these people all repeating the same type of work, you can obviously cut costs. Administration is where many hospitals, insurance companies, and health care programs lose a lot of money, so if you can do a full evaluation of where your money is going, this can often show places where there is far too much overlap. It is important that there are multiple people capable of doing the same job, but you do not want to pay multiple people for doing it at the same time.
3. Spend a Little to Save a Lot
Most health care programs are trying to cut spending, but sometimes you have to spend a little bit of money up front to be able to make that happen. Having more technology available in hospitals is one of those instances. It is expensive to add new machines into any medical setting, but the more you are able to rely on technology for specific tasks, the less you have to worry about paying a human to do it. Keeping track of these areas can give hospitals a lot of insight as to where spending can be cut down through technology, which can help decrease spending overall.
When you are trying to figure out where you can cut costs and improve cash flow, consider some of these options. They can really give you a lot of insight as to where your money is going and how it could be better spent. Many times, outsourcing these duties is the most efficient way to unburden your staff, improve the patient experience, and upgrade your processes for improved cash flow in the long run.
