Many hospitalist programs are under pressure to increase revenues. MediStar helps through a focus on accurate and complete coding, compliance, and follow up. 
Through its marriage of mobile and back-office technology, hospitalist billing specialists, and Six-Sigma process improvement, MediStar has become the premier independent billing company serving the Hospitalist Community. |
The Hospitalist Model and The Revenue Issue The "hospitalist" model is becoming more prevalent in many hospitals throughout the country as a way to improve patient care at an affordable cost. According to the Society for Hospital Medicine, over the past decade, hospitalists have grown from just a few hundred to over 30,000 nationwide — a trend that is expected to continue well into the future. Hospitalists include several subspecialties, all focused on providing inpatient care, including Adult Hospitalists, Pediatric Hospitalists, Laborists, and Psychiatric Hospitalists. Although studies have demonstrated compelling results to justify the hospitalist model, hospitalist directors often find themselves under pressure to increase revenues and profitability. Of course, this must always be done in an ethical and legally compliant fashion. Often the road to increased revenue is not through physician productivity, but rather through a focus on reducing incomplete and inaccurate coding of encounters, and through follow up processes for collection of claims. | |
Coding Issues The hospitalist administrative environment is essentially different from an office visit scenario. Hospitalists typically visit their patients in their hospital room, moving from one patient to another, from one room to another. Unless coding for the patient encounter is entered during the visit, the physican can leave out important information relating to the coding of the encounter, can code the encounter incorrectly, or can overlook the coding for the encounter entirely. Collection Issues Many factors can contribute to performance problems during the collection process. A billing staff that comprises billing generalists — who are not specifically trained in hospitalist billing procedures — may not be fully aware of subtleties associated with hospitalist billing. The billing staff may have other work, including hospital billing and offsite physician billing, that can distract them from giving their full attention to collection followup issues, or there may be staff turnover issues that distract management from the needs and priorities of collection for the hospitalist groups. The MediStar Solution MediStar is an independent revenue cycle management company that has been serving the Hospitalist community since 2003. We understand hospitalist billing and collection issues, and have a track record that demonstrates our ability to maximize, within ethical and legal boundaries, both your gross billable revenue and your net collection rate. In fact, MediStar has achieved an average 99% net collection rate on its current hospitalist portfolio. And we can help you achieve similar results for your hospitalist departments. Coding Solutions The key to effective coding is the use of advanced technology — technology that is highly integrated between the physician and the back office; technology that operates seemlessly as an integral part of the patient encounter process. MediStar partners with the leading mobile Charge and Data Capture vendors and has already integrated its billing systems with their devices, saving you the cost and hassle of dealing with that integration effort yourself. Electronic, hand-held, mobile charge and data capture devices assist hospitalists in capturing all their charges, more accurately, while also improving the quality of their patient care. In addition to providing realtime feedback to assist the physician with coding, these systems also aid in patient diagnosis, enhancing the quality of care, coding, and documentation compliance. Online integration with MediStar back-office billing systems enables our billing staff to review and submit physician charges within hours of an encounter, helping to reduce Days in AR, while producing cleaner, more accurate bills. Collection Solutions Unlike most inhouse billing departments and other independent billing services, MediStar has a specialized Hospitalist Billing Team, specifically trained, knowledgable in, and dedicated to serving our hospitalist clients. Our billing staff reviews all bills, working with you to make necessary adjustments before a bill is submitted, and ensuring that all documentation is fully compliant with applicable regulations. Once a bill is submitted, our specialized hospitalist followup team keeps on top of your payors to ensure the most effective collection process in the industry. In fact, MediStar is one of the few billing companies to use the Six-Sigma program to continually improve its processes. The Bottom Line The end result of our unique marriage between advanced technology and superior staffing is to maximize the revenue that you receive from your hospitalist departments while minimizing your average days in receivables. Give us a call and let us show you how we can do for you what we have already done for many hospitals through the country. |
Two prevalent causes of inadequate hospitalist revenues are coding issues and inadequate billing follow up. Through a combination of technology and specialized staff, MediStar can help address both issues. 
What Our Clients Have To Say "With the help of our new charge entry tablets and the professional talent of the MediStar billing staff, we have seen a marked improvement in overall revenues and net collection rates." -- Connecticut Adult Hospitalist Group "By switching our billing to MediStar and introducing a tablet that they recommended to us as part of their overall solution, we have been able to increase our hospitalist income substantially. We did it all with minimal disruption to our current operation and processes, and our physicians love the system, too!" -- A Major Metropolitan New York Hospital | |