With so many innovations in healthcare operations over the past 5 years, providers need strong revenue cycle leadership more than ever before. In fact, the need for healthcare leaders like revenue cycle managers is projected to increase by 20% between now and 2026.
Strong revenue cycle leadership hinges on four factors: recruiting, retention, engagement, and development. While there may not be a foolproof method for hiring the perfect revenue cycle leadership every time, but we think this strategy is pretty close.
Curious how you can start building a better, stronger revenue cycle management team? Keep reading and stick around for the products you need to start meeting revenue cycle benchmarks faster.
Building Strong Revenue Cycle Leadership
According to a recent B.E. Smith study, 80% of healthcare leaders are recruited internally. This is almost twofold the 50% of leaders hired from an external pool of experienced revenue cycle managers.
The advantage of hiring from an internal talent pool is that the employee is already incorporated into your team. And as we’ll see later, a team environment is vital for engaging and retaining your top talent pool.
Once you’ve found your star revenue cycle leaders, you need to be able to keep them. 27% of leaders say that succession planning and leadership development are the best ways to retain top talent. Another excellent way to make sure you’re retaining your best employees is to create a strong team environment. This tip is also useful for engagement.
When you engage and challenge your revenue cycle leaders, they’re less likely to start looking elsewhere for employment. 72% of healthcare providers measure engagement through patient satisfaction. Other ways to examine employee engagement is through KPIs and profit margins.
Raghu Reddy of SurgCenter in Maryland claims that treating employees with respect and courtesy produces motivation in the workplace. But most important for engagement, he says, is an environment where expectations are clear, employees work as a team, and leaders are recognized for their skills.
Continuous development of your leaders may be last, but it’s arguably the most important. Offer employees opportunities like formal leadership conferences and mentorship programs. Assure you and your revenue cycle leaders are on the same page about where they see their career headed and how you plan to help them get there.
Medical Loan Financing to Meet Benchmarks Faster
So you’ve hired amazing talent from outside and within your organization. Now what? The point of building great leaders is to improve revenue cycle performance. And there’s no better way to measure your success than with revenue cycle benchmarks.
Timely dictations, coding, denials, and payer fee schedules are important for meeting benchmarks faster. Yet optimizing the billing cycle is one of the top practices for surpassing revenue cycle benchmarks.
If you’re searching for a program to help meet revenue cycle benchmarks faster, Epic River’s patient lending program is for you. Find out more about our patient loan offerings and get in touch to start improving your billing cycle.