August 3, 2012 •Brian Watson
Patient statement mistakes can be a serious hindrance to revenue cycle performance. And in more ways than one.
Whether it’s something as relatively minor as mistakenly using bad address intelligence, or as critical as printing patient statement information on the wrong base stock, billing snafus add extra time and overhead to your revenue cycle practices. Re-mailing expenses tend to add up quickly. Add in the cost associated with the extra time those accounts will spend in account receivables (or worse yet, by becoming bad debt) and it’s easy to see why so much effort goes into avoiding statement processing mistakes.
But beyond the immediate impact on your balance sheet, statement processing mistakes are also a potentially embarrassing black-eye for your organization. And that’s all without mentioning the possibility of additional HIPAA ramifications.
Worse yet, mistakes are inevitable. Stuff happens: data isn’t always up-to-speed, files can be faulty, human error intervenes, production systems occasionally break down. After all, even gold-standard, zero-defect programs like Six Sigma allow for 3.4 errors per million.
The Path to Gold-Plated Statement Error Management
Okay, enough of the doom and gloom. The good news is that best-class statement processing companies tend to have defect management down to an absolute science. It’s the result of untold time, effort, and expense spent ensuring that error-free statement printing and mailing is an intrinsic part of their service DNA. And of practice-benchmarking that makes it absolutely certain that zero-error focus is continually assessed and verified.
How do the best and the brightest statement processing companies go about defect-proofing their statement printing and mailing practices? With iterative, battle-tested-and-proven tools like:
1). Address Cleansing. As we’ve written about before, address cleansing is a crucial way to eliminate costly mailing errors. Over 60 million Americans change address each year. As if that alone isn’t enough, you also have to put up with manual address entry errors and bounce-backs due to data that’s incomplete or incorrect. Superlative statement processing companies will tackle that problem head-on through the use of pre-mail tools offered by the USPS, like NCOALink address clean-up and CASS mailing database verification. Then ensure mailstream integrity with Intelligent Barcode piece tracking and USPS Address Change Services to update care providers’ internal records in the event of return mail.
2). Anomaly Suppression and Reporting. Sometimes patient records don’t correspond with your pre-defined billing logic. That can be because of a simple issue or a more complex underlying problem. Either way, that’s probably a statement that you want to flag for internal review, instead of letting the patient be the arbitrator in the matter. Having anomaly reporting in place that identifies and suppresses potential problematic billing is another way to be proactive in eliminating patient statement errors.
3). Statement File Verification. No matter if it’s manually or automatically uploaded, statement files can be problematic at times. And without a failsafe between file upload and mail processing that checks against duplicate files and size irregularity, errors can occur. Automatic inspection programs are used at this step to verify statement file size, record count, and origin date; inspect the file for potential discrepancies; and email you a confirmation that includes the number of files received, a record count for each file, and the statement date. All of which ensures that no faulty statement file falls through the cracks.
4). Online Statement File Review. Visual inspection of a digital (typically PDF) patient statement file via the web prior to print and mail production not only aids in defect identification, but also provides a major shot of peace-of-mind, too. Files are uploaded to a service portal website or securely emailed to a contact in charge of oversight for your organization so that they can be reviewed (and approved, if appropriate) or stored for record-keeping purposes.
5). Automated Production Oversight. Production oversight is the final step in any good error management program. Best-class practices start with the old: visual inspection of actual printed statements to ensure print quality and bar code placement are up to snuff. Then mix in a healthy dose of the new: automated piece counts and digital camera mounts on statement insertion equipment that automatically checks each statement (and its unique 2D barcode) against the original file to verify that no statement is omitted, defective, or inserted out of order.
Technology is a critical part of the defect-management process. But there has to be a disciplined, data-driven, repeatable error management methodology that closes the assessment loop and ensures total organizational commitment. That’s how cutting-edge tools become the basis of a holistic, best-practice statement processing approach. For more helpful hints on what it takes to be on the leading-edge of patient statement printing and mailing, download our free whitepaper, The Five Habits of Highly Effective Statement Processing Solutions today.
Do you have any patient statement defect horror stories that you’re comfortable sharing? We’d love to hear them.