Financial/Revenue Cycle Management

Geisinger, University of Utah Health and other leading health systems to test winning designs in the contest called A Bill You Can Understand, sponsored by AARP.

Michael Middleton, MD, credits online patient portals with helping him grow his Orlando, Florida-based pediatric practice more than three-fold in two-and-a-half years – while keeping staff cost increases at 20 percent.

Four years after what Black Book calls the "replacement frenzy," a recent survey from the market research firm indicates that 87 percent of financially struggling hospitals now regret changing their EHR systems.

In the first major overhaul of Medicaid managed care requirements in more than a decade, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published new rules on April 25 that affect how Medicaid works for the nearly two-thirds of beneficiaries who get their coverage through private managed care plans.

Here’s the rub: $50 billion might be hyperbole, but $5 billion is still a sizable enough market to drive innovations that health systems can harness to engage patients, better manage populations and ultimately improve care and the bottom line.    

Healthcare executives indicated a positive outlook for 2016, with 71 percent expecting their revenues to increase this year, according to a new survey.

Centra Health announced on Thursday that it will deploy Cerner Millennium on both the clinical and business sides, including revenue cycle and patient health management.

Revenue cycle management has gone from being a "back office" function to an "end-to-end" system that begins at patient intake or even before, claims specialists say.

The move toward population health and alternative payment models has seen providers embracing innovative approaches to care delivery, including significant investments in health information technology, according to the spring 2016 Economic Outlook survey from Premier.

Some experts are predicting a spike in denials beginning on Oct. 1, 2016 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will require claims to be more specific. Forward-looking providers are assembling teams to prepare now.