Robotic process automation (RPA) can offer boosted efficiencies across many core aspects of revenue cycle management. And by automating these processes, you can create significant gains in the patient experience and save time and money at the same time. Let's dive into how. 

How RPA Improves Revenue Cycle Management

Healthcare providers today face a colossal list of challenges, from persistent staffing shortages to clunky legacy systems and increasingly tight budgets. And these issues are only expected to exacerbate in severity in the coming years. 

Luckily, RPA can help combat these issues. And one area where RPA can be particularly potent is revenue cycle management. Revenue cycle management (RCM) is the financial process healthcare providers use to bill for services and generate revenue. And critically, RCM is packed full of processes that are prime candidates for automation. Here are just some of these processes. 

Claims Management and Billing 

The claims management process involves tens of thousands of procedure and diagnostic codes, and one small claims error can cause denials and significant delays. Adding to this, healthcare workers have to spend more time reviewing and refiling these claims, wasting yet more time and money. And in a world where healthcare workers are already overworked and stretched incredibly thin, all this additional work can put undue stress on an already stressed system. 

RPA bots can help by automating a great deal of the claims process. For example, automation bots can review codes and charges across disparate IT systems without human input, ensuring all necessary information is gathered and gathered accurately, reducing the probability of denied claims. Bots can also trigger alerts for missing or inconsistent information, ensuring the appropriate team can take remediation steps. 

Whatsmore, RPA bots can handle data extraction and data entry tasks, and bridge communication gaps between legacy IT systems. These automation bots can also work with various third-party insurance portals, capturing claim status data and automatically updating the healthcare provider's internal RCM system. 

In short, RPA in the claims and billing process improves claim accuracy, reduces manual work, and reduces errors. This helps reduce costs by reducing the labor burden and ensuring mistakes don't happen in the first place. 

Appointment Scheduling

Missed appointments cost the US healthcare industry an astronomical $150 billion each year. RPA can dramatically reduce the costs associated with missed appointments through automation. Put simply, healthcare providers can integrate physician calendars with RPA bots to enable patients to choose their own appointment slots without having to speak to a receptionist. Patients can also reschedule or cancel appointments at will, and the bot takes care of updating the systems and all parties involved. 

Wrapping Up

At its core, RPA in RCM is about streamlining as many steps in the billing and claims process as possible, as well as automating other vital areas that typically drive up costs. When you automate these key functions, you can speed up operations, reduce costs, and, crucially, improve patient experiences.