How Does Healthcare Operating Revenue Impact the Revenue Cycle? 

Your organization generates healthcare operating revenue through billing your core patient visit activities as part of your revenue cycle. Your doctors generate operating revenue by offering medical services. Conversely, non-operating revenue is anything that comes from outside patient visit revenue. 

It could be a one-time event or an anomalous activity that doesn't happen every day. TempDev offers a range of services and support to help you better understand and differentiate your revenue streams as part of your healthcare operating revenue.  

What Is the Revenue Cycle in Healthcare?  

The revenue cycle in healthcare is the process you follow to intake patients, process their billing claims for appointments and treatment, and follow up on payment. As part of the cycle, you must verify your patient's eligibility, ensure error-free clinical data, efficiently bill, and monitor the claim in real-time.  

TempDev helps your organization thrive, with tools, best practices, and consulting that are designed to support your financial health. We also work with you to make sure that your organization complies with regulations and best practices.  

Why Is It Important to Differentiate Your Healthcare Operating Revenue From Total Revenue?  

While it's all revenue, it's still important to differentiate your healthcare operating revenue from your total revenue. As you closely examine revenue from the services that you regularly offer, you'll be better able to determine current productivity levels.  

What's probably even more important to your healthcare organization is that you'll figure out how profitable you are. It gives you a better sense of your financial health, but it may point to areas where you need to improve.  

Overall, the healthcare industry is projected to grow ~5% through 2024, but that doesn't mean that every healthcare organization is seeing growth. As you examine your revenue, you may find that your operating revenue is lagging far behind projected estimates because of simple errors, oversights, or lack of follow-up.  

As TempDev works with you to address these problem areas, you should see more operating revenue. It's a domino effect that can dramatically improve the profitability of your organization. Of course, it's also easier said than done. It's not always so simple when many healthcare organizations have experienced such difficult times over the last few years.  

How to Improve Your Revenue Cycle 

It is possible to turn the tide and improve the revenue cycle for your organization. It requires a careful examination of how you do business, with a focus on your revenue cycle. It's also important to recognize that claim denials have increased for some 69% of healthcare organizations over the last few years. While this may be the new norm, it still means that you must redouble your efforts to address the issues. Focus on areas that need improvement by following these best practices:  

Define Accountability

While it might make perfect sense to pass the blame for the lack of follow-up, you can't afford an incoherent and lackadaisical approach to your revenue cycle. Define the responsible party in your organization and hold them responsible. Define reasonable key performance indicators (KPIs) within each department and for each team member and hold them to those targets, while also allowing for flexibility when employees have issues.

Be Consistent With Workflow  

While there may be many different ways to carry out a task, you should make sure that everyone agrees about your revenue cycle process. Take the team-knowledge and training approach. While you have a responsible point person, other team members should be able to jump in and help. TempDev can also help you redesign your workflow for optimization purposes. 

Understand and Identify Your Metrics  

Everyone in your organization might be interested in different metrics to determine the best focal point for your improvement efforts. With so many moving parts, you need to be tracking uncollected accounts as you address those outstanding collection issues in your organization.  

Your goal is to create a revenue cycle in healthcare that is sustainable for your organization. You may not do it exactly like any other organization, but you've got to find ways to address the performance issues and keep on track with your medical billing processes.  

How TempDev Can Help You Understand the Impact of Your Operating Revenue 

TempDev's revenue cycle consultants help you understand how your operating revenue affects your revenue cycle in healthcare. If you're already struggling with factors like bad debt, credit balances, denied claims, or other recycle cycle issues, TempDev can help you overcome these issues.  

With Revenue Cycle Optimization, Flat Rate Medical Billers, and Practice Management Assessment, we focus on identifying where your practice can make significant improvements to your revenue cycle so that you'll realize more of that operating revenue. We offer the tools and resources you need, with top tips and tricks that streamline your billing processes and support your efforts to achieve success.  

Contact us here or call us at 888.TEMP.DEV to get the help you need with ensuring your healthcare operating revenue is positively impacted by your revenue cycle management.