Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | B | Behavioral Healthcare

Managing the revenue cycle: available technologies can help an organization improve its bottom line.

Article Excerpt
The financial situation of most behavioral health organizations (BHOs) is changing rapidly. Although changes vary from state to state, the trend toward more and complex funding and billing requirements is clear. Payer pressure around funding and payments is reaching a critical stage in many organizations. As one of my colleagues frequently says, "The days of doing good works and getting paid are gone." In addition, grant-based funding soon will be a thing of the past, and BHOs will need to deal with some of the difficulties that private-sector acute-care providers have dealt with for many years.

To handle these changes, BHOs can use a concept called Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), a series of activities that helps healthcare organizations manage their business processes more efficiently. These can range from simple organizational changes to high-end technologic solutions that automate difficult-to-perform functions. This article aims to make senior managers, especially those responsible for their organizations' financial well-being, aware of how technology can improve RCM.

Verifying Information

The revenue cycle starts when a potential client first contacts a BHO. This could range from a call to an access center to someone in crisis entering a treatment center. At this...