You Decide Assignment: Accounts Receivable Issues

Matthew Smith
Week 2 You Decide Assignment
Accounts Receivable Crisis
09/05/11
Instructor: Eric Oestman
Class: HS543

I. INTRODUCTION: After conducting a meeting with the medical staff, various clinical departments, Health Information Management, and Business office personnel regarding Accounts Receivable issues within our facility, it was determined that many different areas of concern needed to be addressed. This includes problems with patient admission and registration procedures, claims processing, an inadequate amount of information being written in charts, rejected claims, and patient follow up. Many suggestions from all departments were made during the meeting in an attempt to decrease the number of days that necessary
SOLUTIONS FOR EACH DEPARTMENT
In order to resolve this problem, a combined effort from all departments within this organization must be implemented. This includes the Administrative department, the Finance department, the Health Information Management department, as well as the patient. Each department will provide a specific set of functions from various resources to the overall execution of the newly designed plan. i. Administrative department As you may well know, Admission and Registration is probably the most important department and is the first line of defense against this pressing issue. Properly documenting critical patient data, such as insurance information can literally save a considerable amount of money as well as ensure a faster payment. In an effort to reduce employee errors involving insurance changes during this phase of the process, an increased amount of training classes will be conducted that would explain in full detail about what the procedures are for checking in a patient and a special session that focuses on proper insurance data collecting. In addition to this, a staff member suggested that a full time individual be utilized on a 24 hour basis. The full time clerk will be responsible for the inspection of all other employees’ paperwork to catch any discrepancies that might occur. According to Brown, J. (July 2000), “Manual Claim Reviews including utilization and medical reviews are conducted by trained specialists. Staff
This objective typically requires the utilization of an Aging of Accounts Receivable Schedule, which can be retrieved from resources such as financial department records. According to Emerson, P. (n.d.), “The accounts receivable schedule is a listing of the customers making up the total accounts receivable balance. Most businesses prepare an accounts receivable schedule at the end of the month.” Accessing this critical data can be quite useful and will give the company a much clearer picture as to why this issue is