Hospital charge capture is a key driver in revenue cycle management (RCM) as it is the first entry point to the billing process. At pMD, we understand that each missed charge equates to lost revenue, so we constantly focus on improving this crucial aspect of our RCM to ensure accurate and timely billing.

‍

The Need for Better Charge Capture

Many of our customers come from a conventional charge capture process, where charges for patients seen at the hospitals are recorded and submitted manually on a notecard or spreadsheet. It’s often up to the provider to keep track of days where a charge was missed and physically get the charges over to the billing team while traveling between different hospitals. The most common complaint we heard from prospective customers is that the manual charge capture process was a big time sink and one that contributed to errors and lost revenue.

Through careful analysis, pMD discovered areas where technology and automation could significantly improve the charge capture step of the RCM process.

• Digital Charge Capture: pMD's intuitive mobile and web platform for real-time charge entry immediately passes charges over to the billing team, saving the entire practice from the extra time and errors that came from handling physical charges. pMD’s mobile charge capture also includes Instant Capture, which reduces hospital charge entry down to a single tap.
• Transitional Care Management (TCM): Post-discharge follow-up instructions are built into the sign-off process in pMD, which eliminates the need for providers at the hospital to spend extra time coordinating follow-up appointments with their clinic. This also improves patient care by reducing the chance of a missed check-in appointment.
• Interfaces: pMD can connect or interface with almost any hospital EHR/EMR or practice management system. By creating connections with different hospitals and software, pMD reduces the number of errors in patient demographic information and can even verify patient eligibility automatically through the new pDemographics service.

‍

The Impact on Revenue Cycle

Through improved charge capture, we were able to streamline the front end of our RCM process for our customers, which led to the following:

• Reduced Billing Errors: Standardized code lists and improved demographic verification tools minimized the number of billing errors, leading to more accurate bills and fewer claim denials.
• Increased Revenue: With fewer missed charges and reduced claim denials, we saw an increase in revenue for our RCM customers.
• Enhanced Efficiency: Workflow automation in areas such as TCM significantly cut down administrative time, enabling our customers to focus more on growing their practice in other ways, such as onboarding new providers, taking on more patients, and hitting a new revenue goal.

‍

How pMD^® Can Help

At pMD^®, our mission is to streamline and optimize the patient care episode and the revenue cycle. Through our advanced, end-to-end practice management and revenue cycle solutions, we can help practices consolidate vendors, reduce costs, streamline workflows, improve patient care and satisfaction, and collect their maximum reimbursement more quickly.

Not sure what a vendor could do to improve your behavioral health billing? Contact pMD^® for a no-commitment financial impact analysis by our team of healthcare RCM experts free of charge!

‍

‍