July 26, 2018
That Old Version of MEDITECH Is Costing You More Than You Realize
That seemingly harmless, outdated version of MEDITECH is costing you more than you realize.
Sure, it’s getting the job done, but while your team’s fighting with F functions, the industry’s moving on to a future of efficient processes and patient-centered experiences. With every passing month, you’re missing out on some of the amazing benefits that newer versions of MEDITECH offer.
That is exactly why it’s time to take a look at how that archaic version of MEDITECH is holding you back and how the support of the right payment and engagement partner can help you step into the future of revenue cycle management.
Legacy versions of MEDITECH like Magic and Client Server (C/S) are not robust enough to handle the evolving process of Patient Engagement. Today’s best practices Patient Engagement processes include bi-directional appointment reminders, patient payment portals and patient friendly statements. MEDITECH latest version 6.15 has standard integration points to streamline appointment reminders and statement outsourcing.
It’s Killing Your Patient Experience
MEDITECH’s Revenue Cycle Group (RCG Application), formally known as B/AR (Billing and Accounts Receivables) supports both “Account” and “Guarantor” Patient Statements. While this might seem like a nice convenience, it gets at the heart of one of the hallmark issues of a positive patient experience. Similar to the premise of “that’s just how we’ve always done it”, without careful consideration of what’s best for your patients, can create a scenario that is difficult to undue. MEDITECH Providers historically have chosen or been advised to take the path of “Patient Statements”.
Individual account-level billing isn’t how patients view their relationships with providers. Overlooking this simple point effectively dumps unnecessary confusion into the lives of patients who are already overwhelmed by treatment protocols, appointments, and follow-up instructions. In the case of chronic conditions or instances where patients are billed for both physician and hospital visits, the frustration only compounds.
A survey and report from PwC Health Research Institute confirm just how frustrated patients are with overly complex billing. Consumers are looking for transparency, and they want to see that reflected in their bills. Among survey respondents who made over $100,000 per year, 25 percent said it wasn’t easy to figure out how much of their bill they owed, and 19 percent said paying their bill wasn’t simple. For people in fair to poor health, 31 percent also indicated that paying bills was anything but simple.
The last thing your patients need is more complexity, and revenue cycle leadership has an opportunity to cut out some of the confusion at the root.
Your Team Is Frustrated
The thing about patient confusion, especially patient financial confusion, is that it always boomerangs back to you. Unclear bills multiply into more questions, more calls to your customer service department, fewer payments, and more unnecessary work for your entire team. Newer versions of MEDITECH address process-related issues like this directly.
The back-end-friendly upgrades don’t stop there. The most recent MEDITECH versions include intelligent approaches to workflows with new features like automated worklists. Under MAGIC, for example, account reps were responsible for creating their own follow-up lists. In newer versions, Patient Accounting tracks responsibilities and pushes worklists out to individual users. Assigned accounts can default to schedules based on tasks, denials, account types, and charge rejections — and that’s just the start. This level of automation opens the door to more efficiency and improved cash flow opportunities.
Enhanced reporting also empowers your managers to run sophisticated reports with less work and gain insights into monthly and even daily statistical displays as well as trending financial data. If your managers aren’t currently able to compare financial statistics with organizational goals, monitor team productivity, and review provider revenue by physician or surgeon, it might be time for an upgrade.
MEDITECH Is Moving Forward
MEDITECH might not have started as a front-runner in the patient-centered revenue cycle movement, but it’s made a lot of changes. With statements that center on the patient, online bill pay options, and even assistance in understanding co-pays, MEDITECH is moving into a new era. Sticking with an older version of MEDITECH doesn’t just keep you in the Stone Age of a siloed revenue cycle, it blurs your understanding of the complete patient story and deprives your patients of an experience they’re likely becoming accustomed to at other facilities and providers in your area.
Upgrading Is Easier Than You Think (With the Right Partner)
If you’ve been putting off a MEDITECH upgrade, it’s probably because of the amount of downtime and complexity involved. That’s a fair concern, but there is help from revenue cycle consultants like us who want to see you get the most out of your EHR investment with the least amount of headaches possible.
With MEDITECH’s recent move into a web-based platform specifically designed for the post-Meaningful Use era, it just might be time to start partner-shopping. Our revenue cycle consultants are experts at MEDITECH and can help you on your journey to better patient engagement.
We know healthcare, and that’s why we put data to work for you and your staff. RevSpring is a leader in payment systems that maximize revenue opportunities in acute and ambulatory settings. Our at-a-glance dashboards help hospitals and health systems quickly find and close workflow gaps that are costing time, resources, and hard dollars. Since 1981, RevSpring has built the industry’s most comprehensive and impactful suite of patient engagement, communications, and payment pathways backed by behavior analysis, propensity-to-pay scoring, intelligent design, and user experience best practices.
If you’d like to learn more about our comprehensive patient engagement and billing solutions, we’d love to help you. Request a demo to see how we can help your organization meet its goals.
