Providers Highly Value Revenue Integrity, Underpayment Firms
A recent market research report finds that revenue integrity firms were rated third for overall performance and first for value and customer loyalty.
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By - Revenue integrity and underpayment firms are helping organizations recoup lost revenue and prevent future losses, bringing value to provider organizations, KLAS recently reported.
In a new market report, the Utah-based research foundation found that providers highly value the help they receive from revenue integrity and underpayment firms. Of all of the services that KLAS measured, revenue integrity was rated third overall and first for value and customer loyalty, the report stated.
The report also found that the firms help provider organizations in three ways. The first is to give the organization the pole, bait, and tackle, which is essentially providing technology for missed-revenue collection. The second is to teach them how to fish, or provide optimization and consulting services.
This specific KLAS report focused on the last offering: doing the fishing for organizations or beside them. In other words, outsourcing.
KLAS identified and compared five revenue integrity and underpayment firms. The firms analyzed in the report included BESLER, Revecore, Revint, TransUnion Healthcare, and Triage Consulting Group.
Out of all the revenue integrity and underpayment firms, KLAS recognized TransUnion as having one of the most positive responses, with 97 percent of interviewed clients reporting that they would contract with the firm again.
BESLER clients were also pleasantly surprised how the firm went beyond just finding revenue, and taught clients how to correct problems and reverse negative trends. Twelve out of 19 respondents were highly satisfied with BESLER.
Revecore clients praised the revenue integrity and underpayment firm for having a skilled team and close communication with the provider. Clients also praised the firm’s consultants, highlighting their data mining and effective communication skills. Only one person out of 21 participants was dissatisfied with Revecore’s service, while 11 were highly satisfied. Multiple Revint respondents mentioned the firm’s DRG-validation service as one of their strongest attributes and the widespread cost complaint was quickly offset by the ROI strength. Twenty-two out of 32 clients were highly satisfied.
Finally, Triage Partners stood out with their nearly perfect score from participating clients. Individuals felt that Triage exceeded all expectations and didn’t solely focus on money. “Fantastic,” “competent,” “responsive,” and “proactive,” are the few words that were used to describe Triage. Almost all 20 respondents were highly satisfied, with one outlier.
Revenue integrity is one of the biggest challenges for hospitals and health systems. Over one-third (36.8 percent) of senior-level decision-makers in hospitals and health systems in a recent Black Book survey said revenue integrity was a top obstacle for revenue cycle management.
According to 67.4 percent of these hospitals and health systems, some of these revenue integrity issues challenges were brought on because of the lack of interoperability between disparate vendor solutions. The systems in silos were also to blame, with about 67.4 percent said revenue integrity problems came from systems functioning in silos.
Furthermore, because 30.2 percent of key stakeholders did not trust the data, this led to more revenue integrity challenges.
Many of the revenue integrity problems may be stemming from the use of multiple vendors, the survey indicated. Nearly 69 percent of healthcare organizations surveyed by Black Book used more than one vendor solution for revenue cycle management, while 35 percent partnered with three or more vendors on top of using EHR systems for revenue cycle management.
