How do you leverage technology to improve patient access?

Streamlining and standardizing patient access procedures, using technology to automate manual and repetitive tasks, providing staff with the tools, resources, and incentives they need to perform their jobs well, and engaging with patients to discuss their options, expectations, and support are all important parts of these strategies. Performance related to patient access will be enhanced by putting strategies into place that try to deal with the root causes of errors and inefficiencies. Streamlining processes and workflows, automating reminders and assignments, empowering staff, providing patient education, monitoring and evaluating results are common strategies.

It starts with one critical step: nailing patient financial clearance. To make it happen, both the provider and the patient need clear answers to: What will it cost? (price transparency) How much will insurance cover? (eligibility and benefits verification) Will the patient's insurance pay for it? (prior authorization) What is the patient's out-of-pocket cost after insurance? (patient estimates) AI automation and technology tools can empower both patients and providers to answer these questions upfront. Getting patient financial clearance right from the start will not only improve patient access on all metrics but also help providers avoid downstream challenges in collecting payments from both patients and insurance.

Online Appointment Scheduling: Implementing an online appointment scheduling system allows patients to book appointments conveniently through a website or mobile app. This eliminates the need for phone calls and enables patients to schedule appointments at any time, reducing wait times and improving access to care.

The proportion of patients that schedule an appointment in advance is known as the pre-registration rate. The proportion of patients whose eligibility and insurance are confirmed prior to the appointment is known as the verification rate. The proportion of patients whose care has been approved before their appointment is known as the authorization rate. Point-of-service collections are defined as the sum of money collected from patients at the time of service. A common key performance indicator (KPI) for patient access performance is the percentage of referrals that result in scheduled appointments. This is known as referral conversion.

Efficient patient access processes ensure that patients are scheduled promptly for appointments, tests, and procedures. This results in timely delivery of healthcare services, enabling the organization to bill for services rendered promptly and accelerate revenue capture.

Improved patient access performance can reduce your risk of bad debt, denials, and claim rejections. You can also increase patient loyalty, retention, and recommendations. It is critical for RCM since patient access performance impacts the entire revenue cycle. It evaluates the accuracy and completeness of the patient information used for invoicing and payment. It also has an impact on the patient's ability and willingness to pay for their medical care.

Measure the average time it takes for patients to get an appointment from the time of request. This includes both the time it takes to schedule the appointment and the actual wait time until the appointment date

Educational campaigns targeted to help customers determine the right access needs (i.e. ER visit needed vs urgent care visit needed)depending on the problem will improve the access outcomes. Some times simple patient campaigns on when to leverage ER vs not can significantly improve access to care for patients who are indeed in need of ER visits specially if care access is limited in a geographical set up.

-Establish specific patient access metrics and targets, such as new patient appointment lag days and third next available appointment; identify tactics to achieve goals and measure progress -Adopt patient access policies and procedures, along with standardized scheduling templates and algorithms, and follow consistently -Quantify the number of staff "touches" required for each completed appointment by calculating the sum of the total number of no shows, rescheduled, cancelled and completed appointments divided by the number of completed appointments to determine staff efficiency; take steps to reduce as appropriate

Patient access performance affects clinical outcomes, patient happiness, and revenue generation. Poor patient access performance can lead to errors, delays, denials, and lost revenue. Patient access performance refers to the efficiency and standard of the services that facilitate patients' access to healthcare. Among these services are scheduling, authorization, verification, collections, and referrals.

Adopting a medical billing software- Q secure Despite best efforts, traditional methods we relied on were unable to cope with increasing intricacies of medical billing. The healthcare industry's rapid changes demanded an agile and technology-driven approach for our Medical billing team. It was evident that sticking to conventional methods not only hampered our efficiency but also jeopardized patient access to timely & accurate billing information. Recognizing the need for a transformation, in 2022 we spearheaded the integration of cutting-edge billing software Q- secure into our processes. With help of automation & digitization through Q-Secure, we streamlined workflows, reducing errors & improving the speed of claims processing.