As hospitals continue to struggle in these difficult economic times, CFO’s have become ever more focused on the Revenue Cycle, seeking to eek out all available reimbursement and maintaining industry standard benchmarks for their accounts receivable. Responding to a request from a client, ARMDS prepared a comprehensive training presentation entitled: Revenue Cycle Management or Getting Paid Efficiently, Effectively, Effortlessly (almost!). The seminar covered the four cornerstones of an effective Revenue Cycle: accurate enrollment and eligibility, timely and compliant billing, consistent and purposeful follow-up, and thorough denial analysis with corrective action. ARMDS’ management team facilitated a lively discussion period with the client staff members who represented the departments integral to the Revenue Cycle. At the conclusion of the seminar, ARMDS and the attendees had identified several areas in the Revenue Cycle where processes could be improved. A follow-up assessment indicated that pertinent changes had been initiated and that significant progress had been made towards meeting “best practice” benchmarks for Revenue Cycle Management.

PA PROMISe

Do the intricacies of Medicaid coverage plans elude you? Do you have problems knowing how to code cases when the grouper Medicaid is using is many versions older than CMS’ and they have not updated the latest CPT codes? Do Medicaid EOB’s appear confusing and contradictory?

ARMDS recently met with a Pennsylvania client who had these and other questions. After conducting a thorough assessment of the Medicaid accounts receivable, ARMDS compiled a listing of concerns and questions related to the departments of Patient Access, Case Management, Billing and Follow-up, Denial Management and IT. Realizing that only a face-to-face meeting with a PA PROMISe representative would meet the needs of this client, ARMDS facilitated an on-site seminar with Lana Elias of PA PROMISe. The response was overwhelmingly positive as staff and management alike received in-depth answers to questions, learned how to improve billing compliance and discovered how to navigate the website to yield countless gems of information.

PAST SEMINARS

October 15, 2008 - HFMA Certification

ARMDS Director Maria Facciponti, along with Michael Alwell and Kevin Lenahan of Atlantic Health, Lindsey Colombo of Raritan Bay Medical Center, and Jeff Noonan of MD-X, recently taught a half-day HFMA Certification Prep course. The class was one of four preconference seminars offered by the New Jersey Chapter at the 2008 Annual Institute in Atlantic City. Participants were introduced to the HFMA Certification process and provided an in-depth review of the Core exam study guide. The instructors used presentations, discussions and sample questions to guide attendees in preparing for the exam, which is requirement for achieving CHFP or FHFMA credentials.

October 10, 2008 - ARMDS Client Seminar

ARMDS hosted an educational seminar for our clients and friends at the Woodbridge Hilton Hotel in Iselin, NJ. We had a lively group of speakers who discussed a variety of topics, from Federally Qualified Health Centers to Point of Service Collections. Impending legislation on Universal Healthcare Coverage in New Jersey was perhaps the most thought-provoking presentation of the day. Afterwards, participants joined us for lunch and an opportunity to continue the discussions started during the seminar.

We would like to thank everyone who participated, and especially our guest speakers who helped make this event a great success.

For additional information about the topics presented at our Education Seminar, please see the November 2008 ARMDS Newsletter .

May 29,2008 - NJHIMMS Conference

On May 29, 2008, ARMDS Vice President, Rita Romeu, Director, Mike Conca, and Senior Manager, Cheryl Borstelmann, gave a presentation on Charity Care to members of the New Jersey Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (NJ HIMSS).

Mike began with a brief history of the program before talking about the budget proposal to reduce Charity Care funding by $108 million for FY 2009. Rita talked about audit and documentation issues and led a discussion about how Patient Financial Services and Information Technology departments can work together to make the Charity Care process more accurate and efficient.

The 2008 NJHIMSS Spring Conference was held at the Conference Center at New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) in Princeton. Other presenters included Sean Hopkins, Vice President, Health Economics, NJHA; Jim Hull, President, The Hull Resource Management Group; and Joe Carr, Chief Information Officer, NJHA, who moderated a panel discussion about the information technology challenges that healthcare administrators face.