Behavioral health revenue predictability is one of the many challenges your healthcare organization may be facing today. Without the right software, tools, and access to accurate data, you may not be making the correct decisions to foster growth within your business. Being able to forecast how much money your value-based care model will make and knowing how to manage a behavioral health revenue cycle are critical to running a thriving business. Contact Sunwave Health online or call us at 561.576.6037 today to learn how our behavioral health revenue cycle management software can help deliver healthy outcomes for your business.
Best Practices for Behavioral Health Revenue Predictability
It’s critical for hospitals, healthcare providers, and specialist treatment centers alike to know their patient populations. Without this information, your organization cannot accurately predict the costs of value-based patient care or know how much revenue to expect to cover the costs of the care you provide. In order to achieve behavioral health revenue predictability, your organization should participate in the following best practices.
Healthy Billing Process
Seeing a lot of patients doesn’t guarantee financial success. If the claims you submit for the care you provide aren’t managed properly, you won’t receive the money your organization needs to continue operating in the black. Some of the ways you can ensure your treatment center has a healthy billing process include:
- Collect patient data carefully at intake
- Encourage copays to be paid upfront
- Check eligibility immediately
- Create a billing agreement
- Promptly complete claims
- Correct coding for treatment
- Check up on claims
Data Capture and Analysis
As you try to decide how to manage a behavioral health revenue cycle, consider that the correct software and infrastructure can help with behavioral health revenue predictability. With Sunwave Health’s revenue cycle management, you have access to a data-driven process and analytics to provide a high-level view of what is happening in your organization. Having access to data and analytics is essential for your organization to spot and address any potential problem areas in:
- Patient access
- Payment of claims
- Billing efficiency
- Reimbursement
- Payment
When your revenue cycle management system collects, analyzes, and harnesses the correct data, your team can better predict behavioral health revenue.
Pricing Transparency
When revenue cycles are accurately predicted across the entire patient care journey, patients will be more easily capable of paying for the costs of their care. At the same time, healthcare providers like your organization will be better able to increase their collection rates. Helping patients understand what care is and isn’t covered can also help drive revenue because patients may have help available to lower their out-of-pocket expenses. In this case, you will see a higher rate of payment.
Because a higher than-ever percentage of patients find themselves uninsured or underinsured, there is more of a reliance on trustworthy price estimates for care and patients’ self-payment options. You can make your revenue more predictable and collect patients’ payments more quickly when your treatment pricing is transparent.
Additionally, reimbursements are increasingly based on value-based care. Behavioral health and substance abuse treatment providers can be penalized for giving patients inaccurate cost estimates about medical care. Estimates must be taken seriously because inefficient and unpredictable revenue cycle management stemming from errors, late payments, and other factors can cost healthcare providers a significant portion of their revenue.
To increase behavioral health revenue predictability, your revenue cycle needs more transparency in pricing, particularly in the cost estimates patients receive before treatment is provided. Accurate, clean estimates make it easier to avoid claims being denied due to inaccuracies. Reducing claims denials not only allows healthcare providers like you to be paid faster, but it also saves the time, costs, and lost revenue of having to resubmit them.
Learn More at Sunwave Health
Our fully integrated solution delivers traditional capabilities provided by CRM, EMR, RCM, and billing solutions and can help increase behavioral health revenue predictability. Contact Sunwave Health today by calling us 561.576.6037 or reaching out online to learn how our infrastructure sets us apart to drive healthy results for healthcare providers and patients.
