According to a March 11 report in Physicians Practice, an online publication produced by the American Medical Association, did you know?
- Medicare has increased doctors’ rates by only 4% since 2001, while the cost of operating a practice has risen by more than 20%.
- The austerity approach also will affect the overall U.S. economy, according to official budget projections. The gross domestic product would be expected to grow at a 0.6% faster rate if sequestration were eliminated.
- The AMA, the American Hospital Assn. and the American Nurses Assn. released a September 2012 report concluding that up to 766,000 jobs in the health care industry and industries that rely on it would disappear or fail to materialize as a result of the 2% Medicare cut. There will be nearly 500,000 fewer direct and indirect jobs in 2013 alone, according to the report compiled by the Pittsburgh research firm Tripp Umbach.
- Grants and awards for clinical research will be more difficult to obtain now that the National Institutes of Health is set to lose millions through sequestration. The cuts are coming on top of a decade of lost research dollars that also have had a negative impact on funding for teaching hospitals, said Darrell G. Kirch, MD, president and CEO of the Assn. of American Medical Colleges. He said the loss will delay medical progress and affect the ability to invest in training the next generation of health professionals.
- “Cutting federal funding that supports doctor training at teaching hospitals will exacerbate looming shortages of physicians and other health care providers, and jeopardize the lifesaving care and critical services that teaching hospitals provide in their communities,” Dr. Kirch said.
The determining factor in the success of any practice lies in the health of the medical coding and billing system. Is there a strong heartbeat? What’s the pulse rate? Yet, even when an existing process is not working as well as it could, the risk of transition to a new revenue cycle management process often holds physicians back for fear of losing existing receivables in the process.
In 2013, there’s a no-risk way to transition to a healthcare revenue cycle management company that not only can bridge the gap and keep your A/R flowing at optimal levels but also one that can take your A/R and medical billing, coding and collections process to new levels of success in the long haul. revMD.com provides an innovative service called Revenue Bridge to help you bridge the gap between your old and new services, and keep cash flow at optimum levels during your transition of medical billing, coding and collections services to revMD. Strategic partnerships are created with third party financers for claim payment guarantee during this critical on-boarding time. When a practice makes the transfer, revMD.com pays the former company to transfer/walk away from the remaining contract.
Designed especially in response to the challenge medical practices face, Revenue Bridge is an example of the innovative solutions revMD.com implements every day when they partner with medical practices to maximize reimbursement in healthcare revenue cycle management.
revMD.com is the results-proven alternative for healthcare revenue cycle management, with a niche specialization in medical coding and billing that generates unprecedented results and builds profitable medical practices. Leveraging a history of industry wide success spanning 25 years, revMD.com partners with medical practices throughout the U.S. to optimize revenue for hospital based and practice based physicians. For more information, visit www.revmd.com.
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