How can an EMR Cart Improve POS Collections and Patient Satisfaction?

EMR Carts & Bed Side Registration/Financial Counseling
Electronic Medical Records carts have proven to be the perfect solution to bedside registration and bedside financial counseling. Imagine a “mini-office” which will allow you to access the patient’s open accounts, Register them at bedside, offer them a prompt pay and settlement discount, generate a Patient Liability Form for them to take home and if they pay … you can accept payment and offer them a mini-receipt right from your mobile EMR cart!
What’s the best part about this process designed by HealthWide Solutions? Each and every patient receives consistent financial discussion. In a way, it represents MANDATORY FINANCIAL DISCUSSIONS. No more putting the discussion at discharge where very few of the patients are actually seen.

In addition to the financial benefits, patient satisfaction improves. Why?
·      Time to treatment is decreased with bedside registration.
·      Hospital staff will shuffle, while your patient stays put. Once they are in a treatment       
room, Clinical and Registration staff work seamlessly with each patient to ensure that they receive the best possible care.
·      The Doctor will indicate when it is the best time for Registration staff to complete the patient’s registration at your bedside.

Case Study
Florence Hospital, (169 beds, Florence KY) and Ft. Thomas Hospital, (204 beds, Ft. Thomas, KY) both part of the St. Elizabeth Healthcare System have both achieved dramatic success with their mobile EMR carts and bedside registration/financial counseling within their Emergency Departments.  The process was designed and implemented in February, 2011. To date, both facilities have achieved $120,000 over a 9-week period in cash collections. The process includes electronic insurance verification powered by RevRunner, a McKesson Financial Product; process flow, scripting and a Patient Liability Form designed by HealthWide Solutions. 

Stay tuned for greater updates to this exciting pathway as these hospitals begin to provide bill estimates in the Emergency Department from FHS’ Clear Quote product which integrates with McKesson’s insurance verification pathway. Our goal is to increase cash collections from $30,000 - $40,000 per month to $100,000 or greater for these facilities.

Feedback Matters!

On May 19^th2011, I will be speaking at the Southwestern Ohio HFMA May Institute Conference. HealthWide Solutions is also scheduled to speak at the 37^th Annual NAHAM Conference during the Industry Sponsored Symposium on May 25^th 2011. Both HFMA and NAHAM are great peer organizations and I have been involved with them for years. I think these conferences offer a great opportunity to bring industry peers together to  learn more about what hospitals and health systems do to achieve revenue cycle excellence. I also enjoy teaching and sharing  my own revenue cycle “recipes” which have benefitted so many of my clients.

In both speaking engagements I will focus on management and the strategies and technology which can help us turn our employees into stars and our organizations into best-performers. I have been working in healthcare change-management for over 20 years and I cannot stress how vital  a positive attitude towards management is. Staff need feedback on their performance and the way you give feedback, the words you choose, the frequency in which you give it, and the mode in which it arrives matters. During my presentations, I will go over several ways (from phraseology to HWS technology) in which we as managers can improve the way we communicate feedback to line staff as well as track the performance of our organizations as a whole. I will also touch on some very interesting historical studies which demonstrate how even the smallest amount of feedback can have an enormous impact on staff morale, productivity and team cohesion. During both presentations, I will be showcasing our new, state of the art Dashboard platform, Recalibrate©, which is going to change the way healthcare facilities measure and communicate performance.

I look forward to seeing my clients, colleagues, peers and friends at both of these engagements! We’re so thankful to both NAHAM and HFMA for giving us this platform to present and meet with you all.

To get more information on both the HFMA talk or the NAHAM Symposium, visit us at www.healthwidesolutions.com!

Kind Regards,

Pattie Kloehn, CEO

HealthWide Solutions

Driving change through sustainable solutions.