Turning Data Insights into Action: Optimizing Healthcare Revenue with Data
Use the power of data analytics to reduce revenue leakage and improve your hospital’s financial wellbeing.
Your healthcare organization has a goldmine of information that, when leveraged correctly, will lead to substantial revenue improvements.Harnessing your organization’s data can reveal patterns that directly impact reimbursement outcomes, isolate inefficiencies, and drive actions that improve your bottom line. By analyzing this information, you can streamline resource allocation and optimize revenue.
Let's take a look at the benefits of tracking healthcare data and strategies for making the most of this essential information.
What Is Data Analytics in Revenue Cycle Management?
Revenue Cycle Management is complex. If not managed effectively, healthcare systems can face inefficiencies and revenue leakage. Data analytics improves healthcare operations by identifying trends, reducing errors, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing financial performance. It involves collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to gain hospital performance insights and make informed decisions.
Examples of data hospitals may want to track include the following:
Claim denials and underpayments
Avoidable Write-Offs
Coding vs. length of stay anomalies
Charge reconciliation and likely missed charges
Patient payments at various points in the collection cycle
CC and MCC Capture Rates and CMI trending
Condition Code 44 and Level of Care downgrades
Importance of Data Analytics in Healthcare
Poor revenue cycle management leads to a host of larger issues, the most problematic being reduced net revenue. Inefficient revenue cycle processes cost healthcare systems billions annually. The U.S. healthcare industry alone lost $16.3 billion in 2020 from inefficient management.
Leveraging data analytics can help enhance accuracy and improve operational efficiency, reducing revenue leakage. In fact, research from McKinsey & Company reveals that healthcare organizations using advanced data analysis achieved up to a 20% improvement in their revenue cycle processes.
Strategies for Turning Data Insights Into Action
Collecting and implementing data insights is a multi-step process that often requires outside support. Many hospitals don’t have the resources, knowledge, or capacity to do it themselves.
To fully leverage these insights, healthcare systems need to follow a structured approach when working with a partner. Below, we'll explore the strategies healthcare systems should use to make the most of this essential information. By applying these strategies, organizations can better align their data with financial goals and improve overall performance.
Govern Data
Data governance involves overseeing how data is managed within a healthcare organization. Good data governance ensures data is accurate, consistent, and secure.
To achieve this, organizations must establish clear guidelines for collecting, storing, and protecting data. These guidelines define who has access and how the data should be used. By doing so, healthcare organizations ensure that the data is reliable and readily available whenever needed.
Prioritize Key Metrics
Revenue cycle key performance metrics are measures used to set financial goals and monitor progress toward these goals. To drive meaningful improvements, focus on critical performance indicators that directly impact revenue, such as days in accounts receivable (AR) and claim denial rates.
Implement Real-Time Dashboards
Real-time dashboards allow healthcare organizations to monitor key revenue cycle metrics and track performance continuously. With real-time analytics and alerts, potential issues or bottlenecks can be addressed as soon as they arise. This visibility allows quick decisions and fast fixes, improving efficiency and financial performance.
Enhance Training
Improving revenue is nearly impossible without your entire team buying in. Leveraging the data and analytics at hand, continuously educate management and staff on best practices and new technologies to ensure they are equipped to handle evolving challenges in the revenue cycle. Training should be structured to include regular sessions and hands-on practice with real-life scenarios.
Leverage Predictive Analytics
If your healthcare organization isn't using predictive analytics, you're falling behind. As of 2022, 66% of United States healthcare systems utilized predictive analytics to forecast trends, anticipate issues, and optimize operations. By leveraging these insights, organizations can make proactive adjustments to prevent revenue loss.
Helping Healthcare Organizations Turn Data Insights Into Action
Without the help of a dedicated partner, turning data insights into actionable strategies can feel nearly impossible. That's where we come in. At Eclipse Insights, we're committed to helping clients optimize revenue using cutting-edge technology, expertise, and passion. Leveraging the decades of experience of our collective team, we have refined our approach to RCM data to develop hundreds of queries and analyses designed to identify where leakage may be occurring within your organization - and highlight where to take action.
By leveraging data analytics, hospitals can identify inefficiencies, enhance accuracy, and improve revenue. Partnering with Eclipse Insights provides the support and expertise needed to navigate this process. Interested in learning more about how we can help your healthcare organization thrive? Contact us today to learn more about our services.
