Billing staff turnover and the truth about outsourced RCM
When billing staff leaves a home health and hospice agency, it involves more than just finding a new hire. To maximize revenue, providers must find experienced billing specialists, prepare to train new staff and for ongoing education on regulatory changes, and hope for retention. But with the continued staffing shortage, agencies find themselves with a revolving door of billing specialists, endless loops of training, and facing high costs of hiring the wrong people for a job meant for experts.
In this blog, we explore staffing challenges and how outsourcing revenue cycle management (RCM) is the right answer
The costly staffing challenges in billing services
It’s already difficult to find clinical and administrative staff amid the labor shortage. Add in the highly specialized needs of home health and hospice, which requires experience, and it seems nearly impossible for agencies to find the right people.
Staffing and training inexperienced workers lead to high turnover, which then leads to the remaining staff taking on additional tasks, ultimately resulting in staff burnout. Training rehires takes time and resources from staff who are already overburdened with taking on additional workloads. This endless loop of training is costly for the agency and can create deep morale issues for teams.
Outsourcing RCM comes with a team of billing experts who are always on the cutting edge of the latest regulation changes and training requirements. At MatrixCare, we consistently have training on the latest home health and hospice billing or payor-specific needs. For agencies who outsource, the stress of keeping staff educated disappears because they trust our experienced team to have a thorough understanding of billing regulation before it’s even implemented.
The importance of consistency and expertise in revenue cycle management
For the role of a biller in home health and hospice, knowledge about payor roles, care settings and regulatory updates can make a significant difference when training for the job. If a new hire comes in with zero knowledge about these important factors, training takes longer and billing issues can happen more often.
MatrixCare’s RCM team stays up to date on both federal and state regulation, training staff for specific regions to ensure we always stay ahead of industry changes and payor requirements based on an agency’s location. The consistency and expertise required for revenue success is at the forefront of everything we do, so providers can focus more on those they serve.
The disruption of a departing biller
The time to plan for billing staff turnover is not the day they leave. It’s common for us to receive panicked requests for outsourced RCM the day a biller quits, but logistical requirements like DDE access and clearinghouse management can take a month or longer.
For agencies that have one person on the billing staff handling everything, it’s key to establish a process for every single step of billing, AR, how you receive payments, etc. Put it in writing so that another staff member can get up to speed quickly.
With an outsourced RCM team of experts, agencies never have to worry about billing staff taking PTO or quitting out of nowhere. MatrixCare keeps billing safe and managed each day with zero gaps and zero disruptions. This means agencies never need to plan for billing turnover, a costly stress for many.
The evolving landscape of RCM
With regulation around home health and hospice care on the rise, agencies are constantly trying to keep up with industry changes. For example, with NOEs and NOAs now having to be posted to Medicare within five days, that creates the need for training and managing compliance. This takes time and resources away from other parts of your business.
NOEs and NOAs can suffer significantly if not picked up within a timely manner. With RPA technology, we can automate data collection and then use our expert billers to manage any issues that come up — helping to ensure that coding issues get solved within the required time restraints. Our revenue teams work directly with agencies to stay up to date on all things RCM, streamlining processes and communicating any issues.
Connect with us today to learn how our RCM services can benefit your agency.
Nancy Cary
Nancy possesses a wide range of experience in the Home Health and Hospice field, including direct involvement in managing various aspects of the revenue cycle such as intake, authorizations, medical records, accounts receivable, and other related positions within Home Care and Hospice agencies. As a Senior Implementation Consultant, Nancy has successfully overseen complex software implementations for McKesson and Netsmart Home Health and Hospice. Her expertise extends to working with payors, particularly Medicare, and she is highly knowledgeable in the specific billing rules and regulations pertaining to Home Health and Hospice.
Before assuming her current managerial role, Nancy served as an A/R Consultant in the Revenue Cycle Division of HEALTHCAREfirst. In this capacity, she utilized her skills and knowledge to implement RCM services for unique and large clients, as well as assisting customers in resolving intricate A/R and billing issues. Nancy's notable strengths lie in her exceptional ability to train, develop, and efficiently manage effective teams.
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