Best Practices

Breaking Down the Back-End Revenue Cycle, Key Best Practices

February 22, 2024 - The healthcare revenue cycle is a continuous process that relies on each step to keep revenue flowing. However, many organizations break down the revenue cycle into front- and back-end steps to manage what happens before and after a patient encounter. Back-end revenue cycle deals with revenue collection and management after a patient leaves the exam room and the following...


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Key Ways to Boost Collection of Patient Financial Responsibility

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Patient financial responsibility keeps growing, creating challenges for healthcare organizations looking to collect all revenue for services provided to patients. According to the latest “KFF Employer Benefits Survey,” the...

Exploring Front-End Revenue Cycle, How to Optimize Its Performance

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The healthcare revenue cycle is broken down into three parts: the front-end, mid-cycle, and back-end. Much focus goes into mid and back-end functions, such as coding and billing, claims management, and denials management. However, what...

What Payment Integrity Means for Providers, How to Avoid Claim Issues

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Healthcare providers are constantly running into payment integrity tools payers put in place to ensure proper payment. But payment integrity is also crucial for providers if they want accurate, complete, and timely reimbursement. Of the...

Top 3 Practice Management Strategies for Ongoing Success

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Physician practices are up against a changing healthcare environment, and one that has made it harder to survive. Declining reimbursement rates, industry consolidation, and new sites of care delivery...

3 Hospital Price Transparency Strategies for Compliance, Patients

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Hospital price transparency goes beyond just compliance with federal regulations. Patients are also demanding more transparent pricing information from their providers in order to make more informed...

3 Strategies for Revenue Cycle Management Optimization

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Revenue cycle management optimization is a top priority for financial leaders coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, healthcare organizations faced significant revenue and volume losses all...

Value-Based Contracting 101: Preparing, Negotiating, and Succeeding

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The Triple Aim. The Quadruple Aim. Right care at the right place at the right time. Whether one works in a hospital or small independent practice, healthcare providers are leaning on these concepts to deliver valuable care to their...

Scale, Efficiency Key to Provider Success in 2021 and Beyond

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed the healthcare business model, causing providers to rely more on scale and efficiency to maintain financial stability in 2021 and beyond. At least those...

3 Key Steps for Hospital Price Transparency Compliance

by Jacqueline LaPointe

CMS now requires US hospitals to post a list of their standard charges, including rates negotiated with private payers, on a publicly available website in both machine-readable and consumer-friendly...

3 Ways Health Systems Are Preparing for a COVID-19 Vaccine

by Jacqueline LaPointe

With an emergency use authorization just around the corner for a COVID-19 vaccine, health systems are preparing to receive and manage the drug to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. But most...

Top 4 Hospital Chargemaster Management Challenges

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The hospital chargemaster is key to optimal reimbursement. The collection of standard prices for services and items used by a hospital determines how much providers should bill payers and patients for...

3 Ways to Improve Medical Coding Quality for Accurate Reimbursement

by Jacqueline LaPointe

While some have said medical coding sits quietly in the middle of the healthcare revenue cycle, it is a key step that, when done inadequately, can impact each part of the revenue cycle after it....

How Top Accountable Care Organizations Save Year After Year

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Accountable care organizations had a record year, according to the latest performance data for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. CMS recently announced that organizations participating in the program – which are otherwise known...

Top Ways to Improve Collection of Patient Financial Responsibility

by Jacqueline LaPointe

As the cost of healthcare continues to rise and patients increasingly owe more for their care, providers are finding that collecting patient financial responsibility is becoming one of their biggest...

Healthcare Revenue Cycle Recovery After the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Halfway through 2020, hospitals have been doing the unimaginable. Patients have been asked to avoid healthcare facilities when possible, while more visits have been done via smartphones and laptops than in exam rooms. Meanwhile, some...

Key Considerations for Reopening Healthcare Facilities Amid COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Under the direction of federal and local governments, healthcare providers locked down their facilities to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, shutting down key clinical service lines and...

Healthcare Organizations Unsure of Stimulus Relief Package Impact

by Emily Sokol, MPH

Stakeholders are unsure how the recent stimulus aid package will impact their healthcare organization while battling the coronavirus, largely because many of the details regarding the aid are still...

4 Key Strategies for Accountable Care Organization Success

by Emily Sokol, MPH

The passage of the Affordable Care Act sparked many innovative care delivery and payment reform models. One unique model that emerged from this trend was the accountable care organization (ACO). In this model, groups of doctors,...

3 Strategies to Help Accountable Care Organizations Boost Savings

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have come a long way since the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Providers have formed over 1,000 ACOs covering over 32 million patients since the law paved the way for...