Registration stage of
revenue cycle management
The RCM registration process is vital to a clinic’s overall success. This is a patient’s first interaction with your business and may determine whether they decide to schedule with you or another office. A negative experience will increase the probability that the patient will no-show to their first appointment. In contrast, a positive experience will increase the likelihood that they will arrive at their appointment. An ineffective process will cause the practice to lose the patient for current and future treatments and cause billing problems.
the rcm registration process
This process can begin via phone call, text, or through online scheduling software. It is critical that patients can schedule an appointment with ease and be seen in a timely manner. Patients want to have multiple options on how to best schedule their appointments.
New patient paperwork should be sent electronically through a patient portal or other means, if possible, when the appointment is initially scheduled. Staff must be trained to gather all needed information from the patient before their new patient paperwork is accepted. Completing this process successfully before the patient’s appointment can save a clinic 30+ minutes and improve revenue-cycle-management-based care on that one patient’s appointment alone.
rcm registration insurance management
Appropriate insurance management may be the most challenging part of this process. Staff must be trained to input insurance information into the system and check eligibility correctly. This will avoid the concern of patients being billed out-of-network visits without their knowledge, which could result in the practice not getting paid at all as well as now dealing with an angry patient.
Accurate and efficient RCM registration processes should be established to include the collection of a co-pay according to the patient’s insurance agreement as well as a strategy to collect patient balances at the time of service. This is the best time to collect patient funds and is the most missed opportunity in the Accounts Receivable process.
work with Revenue Cycle Management Consultants
Offices often struggle to implement efficient policies and procedures to accomplish the RCM registration processes effectively. Once established, management must effectively train staff on how to execute the policies and procedures in place. Aspire Health Management has experts trained and ready to help you establish best practices and train and support you and your staff with these processes.
