Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management service (RCM service) is one of the integral parts of any hospital or medical practice. Because of how critical a hospital’s revenue cycle management is, practices choose to let experts handle this and outsource the process to third-party service providers.
There are many myths revolving around outsourcing RCM, and here are experts from Quintessence Business Services and Solutions trying to analyze and bust those that aren’t backed by truth.
One of the biggest myths around outsourced Revenue Cycle Management services is that since the clients pay less for work, they need to accept lower work quality.
This is absolutely not true. One reason healthcare companies prefer outsourcing their RCM services to other countries is the lowered cost of running a business. As a result, the service providers can offer their clients competitive rates.
This does not mean that the quality of work should suffer. In fact, many third-party service providers end up amazing their clients with their exceptional technological background and human expertise. If your service provider gives you the impression of adjustments owing to lower rates, it is time to look for another partner to handle your RCM services.
Many hospitals and practices don’t consider outsourcing their Revenue Cycle Management services because they already have an in-house team and don’t want to get rid of the team to opt for outsourcing.
It would actually be a great advantage to have a mix of in-house and outsourced RCM services, in reality, however. The in-house team can take over coordination with the third-party service providers and also get to use their technology and expertise to grow professionally. This is an intelligent way to offer on-the-work training to your billers and coders without investing in L&D programs!
One of the most common reasons healthcare practices hesitate to consider outsourcing, especially to service providers in other countries, is the difficulty in coordination.
Let’s assume the healthcare brand is in Texas, United States, and the service provider works in Bangalore, India. How do they handle the time zone differences? What about communication, language, and cultural differences in working with such drastic teams?
Revenue Cycle Management service providers like Quintessence understands these hesitations and take all steps necessary to handle them. Our team is always available during the working hours of our clients, and all our team members are comfortable communicating in English. Our team loves the diversity we have amongst us, and that is why we find it extremely comfortable working with clients from different parts of the world. Find a service provider like this, and you don’t have to worry about coordination issues.
Another myth that has been in existence for a while now and needs to be addressed is that outsourcing is only for cutting costs. Yes, cost-cutting indeed is one of the essential reasons why outsourcing has become a practice across different industries. However, there are so many other benefits of outsourcing that shouldn’t be ignored.
A healthcare practice handles extremely sensitive patient data, and protecting the data is always one of its biggest concerns. In such a scenario, they may wonder how safe it is to outsource their Revenue Cycle Management services to a provider on the other side of the world. What if they misuse the data or be careless and cause a data breach? These are absolutely critical things to worry about. However, all it takes to outsource RCM services is to check the service provider’s processes for data security.
Let’s take Quintessence, for instance. Quintessence’s everyday operations and our data centers are all SOC II Type 2 certified. All our processes are digital, and we ensure that no data can be accessed from outside our network. We do not store sensitive data in physical form anywhere in the organization. Our processes are all HIPAA compliant, and our teams go through rigorous HIPAA compliance training regularly to stay updated. While it is important to ensure no data breach happens due to outsourcing, this is not a reason why practices should miss all the benefits that outsourcing brings.
RCM services involve multiple steps, from documentation to denials management, payment posting, and analytics. Many health practices assume that they can only outsource these processes end-to-end. That is absolutely not true! Some practices may face specific problems in a few of their Revenue Cycle Management service steps, and they can outsource just these to get a bird’s eye view of the problem and find an outsider expert solution to them.
While it may be effective when third-party service providers handle end-to-end operations, they will definitely rise to the challenge of handling one or a few of these steps and bring a positive difference.
A few questions that most clients have when they meet us for the first time are:
Practices worry they may not have any outcome guarantees when they trust third-party service providers. This is also a myth, according to us. Service providers can definitely guarantee outcomes to their clients and also keep up that promise.
One of our key promises to all our clients is an outcome guarantee. We would adhere to the SLAs from day one and ensure the process changes and updates bring results quickly and consistently. That’s why we confidently have performance-linked fee structures, where clients pay for the performance they experience.
Takeaways
Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management services is more than merely a cost-saving trick right now. From improved business performance to the use of high-end technology and gaining a competitive advantage, outsourcing in the healthcare industry has many benefits. A third-party service provider like Quintessence can completely transform your existing RCM process and strengthen the operations, so you keep building revenues and growing as a brand. Eliminate these seven myths about outsourcing from the mind so you can focus on the positives of partnering with an expert RCM service provider to your advantage.
