22% of revenue cycle leaders prefer to outsource their outpatient RCM services
Nearly 22% of revenue cycle leaders who manage inpatient revenue cycle management (RCM) operations said they prefer to outsource some of their outpatient RCM services.
According to a study by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), revenue cycle leaders have increasingly turned to automation and outsourcing to fulfill their RCM responsibilities as outpatient services expanded and staffing shortages increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most common outpatient services healthcare leaders outsourced were anesthesiology, gastroenterology, and urology. Respondents were most likely to consider outsourcing RCM services for remote patient monitoring and medical devices, internal medicine, and radiology and imaging.
HFMA Head of Customer Research and Association Insights President Bill Voegeli said that there is a pressure on healthcare providers to effectively manage to expand outpatient sources of revenue and expenses,”
“Many of today’s healthcare financial and RCM teams lack the necessary time, information, and/or staff resources to fully understand the opportunities or implications for RCM automation beyond their electronic health record,” he stated.
Voegeli added that the research reaffirms that healthcare finance professionals will benefit by staying up-to-date about ways to optimize the growing area of outpatient RCM and gives RCM executives insight into new avenues for optimization.
