You are a staff member in the finance department at Nouveau Health, whose sole responsibility is to advance the success of the organization through assisting in planning, forecasting, and finance mana

Heather Rickman

Unit 1

Discussion Board 2

Fiscal Management in Healthcare Services

HCM410-02-2002B

Professor Damian Colella

Healthcare Organization Financial Fundamentals

*What has to occur for inpatient revenue to increase? *

There are many ways to try to increase inpatient revenue. By building an online presence you can obtain more patients and increase revenue. Improving your patient collection strategy is another way. You could hire a collection agency to help you with this. Offering after hour virtual visits can help increase revenue that way you can fit more appointments in one day. Having a motivated staff is a valuable resource. Happier employees mean happier patients. Giving your staff positive feedback and encouragement everyday will help with keeping them happy and increasing revenue. Renegotiate your payer contracts. If you have the data to show that your practice is getting great care outcomes in a cost-effective way, you will have leverage to go to payers and ask for a pay raise.

*How do readmission rates affect inpatient revenue? *

No hospital wants readmissions, because they can be quite costly. By analyzing patient data and giving better follow up care we can help decrease readmissions. By making sure that we are looking at all the information that is in front of us and double checking to make sure all the information is correct we can reduce readmissions. Hospitals are penalized if they have too many readmission rates. So by giving detailed and accurate instructions before discharge is highly important. There is a new policy that went into affect that says commissioners will not pay for any emergency readmissions to hospitals within 30 days of discharge from a previous planned hospital stay.

*How do outpatient services increase reimbursement in a Wellness Center? *

Wellness Centers are great centers to have. They focus on preventative care. Having outpatient clinics are great because they are less expensive to operate. Most times they are smaller than hospitals and do not cost as much to maintain. Reimbursement is better when the patient does not have to stay the night and they are able to get the proper treatment in less time. Most insurance companies encourage having outpatient clinics and wellness programs because they are more cost effective. Due to the nature of reimbursement, hospitals make more money from patients who do not need to stay overnight. Many outpatient surgery procedures are optional and paid for by private insurance.

*How can expenses be controlled to improve revenue? *

To reduce labor costs and increase efficiency, employers should have timely access to different types of data that will help monitor work hours, overtime, number of patients, and full- time employees per occupied bed. They should determine what is the major impacts in their organization’s revenue. By examining items on profit and loss statements to determine where money is going is another good way to improve revenue.

*References*

NCBI, Soumya Upadhyay, Readmission Rates and Their Impact on Hospital Financial Performance, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6614936/

Revcycle Intelligence, Catherine Sampson, May 31, 2016, 5 Ways to Increase Hospital Profitability, Aid Revenue Cycle, https://revcycleintelligence.com/news/5-ways-to-increase-hospital-profitability-aid-revenue-cycle

Triage Logic, January 22, 2019, Increase the Effectiveness of your Hospital Based Wellness Program, https://triagelogic.com/increase-the-effectiveness-of-your-hospital-based-wellness-program/