The Vee Healthtek coding team was tasked with identifying solutions to improve the delay in coding unbilled charts for a large hospital. The client was facing a financial crisis and had to significantly reduce staff. The delays in availability to code had reduced their cash revenue and they were looking for solutions to resolve the unbilled volume and improve cash performance fast and efficiently.
At the end of 2017, the client had to reduce staff significantly and had turnover at the HIM Director position. These changes led to barriers that needed to be addressed and presented opportunities to update processes and implement best practices. Some of the problems to overcome included:
Our coding team worked closely with the newly hired interim director to establish better protocols and implement new systems to bring the unbilled volume below the goal. The steps that were taken include the following:
In the initial three months of 2018, Vee Healthtek worked closely with the client on daily operational calls to identify the problems and implement corrective actions. By the fourth month, the improvements were reflected in the numbers and we started to see improvements from the client’s operational and clinical departments. By June of 2018, the unbilled goal was exceeded and the process was stabilized. Vee Healthtek was able to reduce the overall number of unbilled claims and provide optimized processes to better streamline cash collections and operations.
