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Your Winning Formula (and a New Calendar) for Zero-Pay RAPs

Aligning your business’s people, processes and technology is a formula for success, and to get your RAPs filed and accepted by CMS before the penalty period can start, it’s crucial. Becoming penalty-proof begins with your people, and these three specific teams are particularly instrumental. 

Billing and Collections 

The first significant adjustment for your billing and collections team is recognizing that the Monday-to-Friday work week is no longer possible. Beth Prince, vice president of revenue services at Corridor, says, “That is not our environment anymore. Our environment is now seven days a week.” Many home health providers have hired additional staff, used PRN resources or outsourced functions to ensure that claims are filed and documentation is completed seven days a week.  

Scheduling 

Your scheduling teams are as crucial for success as your billing employees, says Beth, and they deserve support and careful managerial oversight. You will need to have care teams in place and on time with the patient, and communications among your scheduling staff and with your care teams must be efficient and productive.  

Clinical care teams 

With the right training and support, your field clinicians can be the lynchpin to your penalty-proof status. Empower them with well-defined processes and the appropriate technology so that they can complete point of care documentation directly into your EHR from the field. This not only reduces errors or omissions from relying on their recall later that day, it also provides your office staff more time to consult with the referring physician for additional services that might be required. Further, it eliminates the lag time that would otherwise be required to manually enter this information retrospectively – when minutes count, this is a meaningful time savings.  

More best practices to consider 

Documenting directly into your EHR from the field is a best practice worth adopting now. Ty King, relationship management director at Forcura, adds that all teams operate most effectively when their roles are clearly defined, and their workflows standardized. Do not leave anything to chance. Ty offers that many of Forcura’s clients have checklists for their intake teams and use the Forcura Workflow dashboard to monitor for bottlenecks and daily performance.  

Another excellent practice to adopt is auditing your workflows in real-time to quickly identify any unforeseen gaps or training needs. Ty advises that internal audits are especially helpful if you’ve recently introduced new processes or workflows: “don’t wait for penalties to hit after-the-fact, but monitor and correct as you go along, using analytics and reports from your technology to empower you to act fast.” 

Don’t miss our blog, Four Ways Technology Will Make Home Healthcare Penalty-Prooffor more on how technology can round out your formula for success. 

With your team roles defined and your calendars and schedules in place, be sure to download our Zero-Pay RAP Daily Planner and keep your RAP filing on target. 

Kate 6-Retouched

 

As Forcura's Director of Communications and Brand Strategy, Kate brings a robust background and knowledge of the healthcare and post-acute industry to Forcura. She also represents Forcura as a social media ambassador at events around the country, is an on-camera reporter and interviewer, and host of our Innovate Jax podcast.

Connect with Kate on LinkedIn.

Topics: Maximizing Back-office Efficiency, Zero-Pay RAPS

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