The Patient access department has always been an integral piece of how hospitals work, namely because they touch every patient that walks through the hospital's doors. They are also critical to the success of the hospital as they determine patient eligibility, enter required billing data, collect co-pays, code and track claims, and in many cases, represent the first 'face' or interaction the patient has with the organization. However, the Patient Access staff often receives the least amount of training, even when up to 40% denials are tied to error within the department. Hospitals need to recruit, retain and develop skilled revenue cycle staff for all essential revenue cycle functions. Thus, the very foundation of Patient Access is education and an educated front line staff will lead to a strong hospital revenue cycle. However, finding and retaining skilled front line staff has been a challenge for many health care providers for many years.
In this presentation, the speakers will walkthrough several current challenges within the Patient Access function and how systematic training and investment into your employees can lead to tremendous success. They will also look how implementing an effective and efficient program to turn a hospital or community's existing population into quality front staff will kelp to solve the supply challenge. To enable this, hospitals need to embark on a program to develop patient access staff organically by leveraging the power of their local communities. Through a standardized onboarding and competency management program that leverages eLearning, classroom instruction, and analytics, hospitals can now employ a "grow your own" approach to develop staff from the hospital's community and internal organization. This program is aimed at improving quality, reducing cost, increasing patient satisfaction, providing a career path for Patient Access professionals, and insuring a robust and strong revenue cycle.
The key learning objectives of this presentation are:
- Understand the nature of provides struggle to attract and maintain a skilled front line workforce
- Walkthrough several challenges within the Patient Access function and how a competent Patient Access team can turn those challenges into opportunities
- Learn how to think outside the box by integrating an approach to create an ongoing staff competency management
- Understand how to deploy a "grow your own" approach by sourcing patient access from local and non-traditional sources, and developing and maintaining a high quality front line workforce
- Illustrate how education can support the culture change required to implement successful initiatives
Presented By:
Thomas Ormondroyd, President of Education and Analytics, nThrive
Erica Franko, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Advisory Services, nThrive