It goes without saying that the pandemic not only unleashed an invisible foe to mankind but also led to a series of events that resulted in physician burnout to an unimaginable extent. Healthcare staff shortage and burnout, which peaked during the pandemic, have refused to subside since then. With the rising demand for better healthcare, providers are struggling to meet their clinical and administrative needs with the limited resources they have. This isn’t merely causing disruptions in care delivery, with reported delays in treatments causing inconvenience to their patients, but also resulting in a massive backlog of their accounts receivable (AR) due to impacted revenue cycle management (RCM) across all levels – patient access, billing, and collections – further affecting their bottom line.
The industry trends make a strong case
A recent study by KLAS Research reveals that over the years, staff shortage has become the top contributor to burnout, which, in turn, not only affects the well-being of healthcare workers but also correlates with increased turnover and financial strain on providers.
In a 2022 Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) survey of over 400 revenue cycle leaders and chief financial officers (CFOs), respondents expressed their concerns over increasing revenue cycle workforce shortages and indicated they were pivoting toward artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to meet their RCM needs.
Another survey around revenue cycle staffing shortages by the HFMA revealed nearly 60% of healthcare finance leaders needing registrars, 55% requiring medical billers, and 42% wanting staff for patient follow-ups. They further expressed their struggle with hiring new talent and retaining old staff due to the time and resources needed to train them. Despite efforts like wage increase for existing employees and sign-on bonus for new talent, they could not beat the labor shortage crisis.
Undeniably, the most reverberating effect of revenue cycle staff shortages is the burnout of the existing staff, making it harder for them to ensure accurate eligibility checks and authorizations for smooth patient access, error-free claim submissions, and timely AR follow-ups for reimbursements. This not only results in missed revenue opportunities and dissatisfied patients but also snowballs into further staff turnover.
According to the 2023 Gallup report State of the Global Workplace, disengaged employees cost up to $8.9 trillion in lost productivity. According to the American Medical Association, each instance of physician burnout can cost between $500,000 to more than $1 million. Besides, various studies have confirmed the direct implications of physician and staff burnout on care delivery and the revenue cycle.
Read on to know how staff shortage-induced burnout can impact your revenue cycle and patient experience and how you can implement a foolproof strategy to navigate through this crisis.
The toll of staff shortage on the revenue cycle: The hidden cost providers bear
With more people leaving the system due to burnout, the ultimate cost burden falls on the health systems already struggling with process inefficiencies arising out of overburdened staff. Claim denials continue to increase due to these inefficiencies, with reimbursement rates declining, impacting the cash flow. The struggle to maintain financial stability increases for the providers, compelling them to look for ways to improve revenue.
This indeed calls for a pragmatic approach to RCM that focuses on streamlining workflows while mitigating staff burnout and improving financial and health outcomes.
To start with, providers can leverage top-tier technologies like AI, business intelligence (BI), and automation to reduce systemic inefficiencies and errors by overworked staff that lead to delayed reimbursements. Besides, they can opt for RCM solutions or outsource RCM to professionals with subject-matter expertise that can help them handle revenue cycle complexities while reducing their workload and saving staff time for high-value, critical tasks.
Workforce deficit affects patient engagement too: The ripple effect that must be addressed!
Another effect of healthcare labor shortage is the poor patient experience due to longer wait times and compromised care. Many industry studies have also confirmed the correlation between staff shortages and poor health outcomes. With the existing staff taking on both administrative and clinical workloads, the resulting fatigue often affects the overall patient care quality. Often in short-staffed practices, clinical staff members tend to speed up patient documentation and assessments, which further results in compromised care delivery, thereby impacting the patient experience.
Patients also tend to suffer when, due to excessive work pressure, the in-house RCM team does a rushed job to file claims, which end up getting denied. As a result, the collections suffer, adding to the frustrations of both the provider and patients alike.
These adverse effects of staff burnout can be mitigated with technology integration and getting the revenue cycle expertise on board to improve financial outcomes and patient journeys. Access to better technology can lessen the burden on the existing staff by automating repetitive administrative tasks, so providers and their staff members can free themselves from mundane tasks and focus on care delivery.
Patient experience can be improved by automating front-end functions like eligibility verification, leaving dependence on the staff only for critical interventions, to smoothen the intake process. Besides providers can leverage AI and BI to analyze their revenue cycle needs in real time to streamline their workflows and drive better collaboration and outcomes.
The vicious staff turnover cycle that hits the bottom line
Be it front-end operations or backend AR collections, overworked revenue cycle staff members are more likely to make preventable mistakes due to paucity of time during patient intake, billing, and claim processing, even though they are required to pay more attention to detail, given the complexity and importance of their task. This work-related pressure eventually results in high employee turnover. Replacement hiring and training further add to the woes of the providers and their existing staff members. A 2023 Stat poll by the Medical Group Management Association ( MGMA) revealed hiring and training medical coders and billers was most difficult amid staffing shortages in the healthcare industry.
There is a silver lining to this conundrum too!
Navigating the complex maze of staff burnout and shortage can be tedious for providers who do not have the resources to address their needs, and therefore, partnering with a strategic RCM solutions provider can be a game-changer here.
Outsourcing RCM can help providers who neither have the luxury of time nor have the resources to hire and train new members. This will not only ease the burden on their existing resources but also help them gain from the expertise of revenue cycle professionals who are well-equipped with both technology and industry experience to deal with complex situations and help them improve their financial performance and patient experience.
Unleash the potential of outsourcing to reclaim your time and revenue
With Jindal Healthcare as your trusted RCM partner, you can drive operational efficiency across the board with a team that works dedicatedly to improve your front-end, mid-cycle, and back-end revenue cycle functions. We leverage advanced AI modeled into our propensity-to-pay and workflow management platform, HealthX, which works alongside other industry-leading technologies to facilitate effective prior authorization and RPA-assisted eligibility verification for smooth patient access; accurate medical coding and billing by certified, trained experts for improved clean claim rate; and AR and denial management to efficiently work your claims to improve your cash flow.
This helps mitigate staff burnout in your in-house team, allowing you to allocate your resources to high-value tasks and save time to focus on patient care. Moreover, having professional RCM expertise by your side is a sure-shot way of improving your process efficiency in the most systematized way. It not only helps you reclaim your revenue but also helps you improve collaboration for effective patient engagement and experience, thus transforming your revenue cycle journey from strain to gain.
