The focus at IFO Fusion, held this year at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, is still clearly on the world of accounts payable automation; but the audience at this year’s well-attended event also had interest in a number of other areas, including cloud-based solutions, outsourcing, and learning more about topics like medical banking and digital mail.
I presented to a good-sized audience on the topic of healthcare payments automation and reconciliation. The audience included representatives of a number of banks that are exploring adding this type of service to their existing lockbox offerings for their healthcare-provider customers.
There was a good exchange of ideas about the challenges of both constructing postable EDI 835 files as well as the need to focus on the reconciliation, through a single source, of both the paper EOB and EDI streams of remittances. The Department of Health and Human Services interim final rule related to the use of NACHA ACH transactions sets for integration of the payment data with the EDI remittance stream and the looming January 2014 deadline for compliance was also a heavily discussed item. [Read more…]
Several upcoming events will give us an opportunity to talk about medical banking and Digital Mail Gateway, our new solution that enables corporations and print and mail providers to transform, package and deliver customer communications to consumers through digital mail providers.
Alan Beaney and I will be in Baltimore for Payments 2012, which runs from April 29 to May 2. More than 2,500 people are expected at Payments, where we’ll talk about digital mail alongside our partner Zumbox. Among the industry’s leading providers, Zumbox has created a digital mailbox for every street address in the country where an exact electronic copy of a paper item is delivered in a secure, central, online environment. [Read more…]
Clarity. That seemed to be the watchword at the panel discussion on medical banking I hosted Monday at TEXPO 2012, the annual treasury management conference hosted by the Dallas Association for Financial Professionals.
Appearing with me were my Systemware colleague Andrea Chiappe and Laurie Masscurro from Bank of Oklahoma Financial. We had a tough act to follow — luncheon speaker Boone Pickens – but we managed to attract an audience of bankers and others interested in “Lessons Learned in Remittance Processing Implementations.”
All three of us talked about clarity, beginning with a bank’s overall goal. That’s to generate a file their customer can post, even though systems vary. Obviously, the cleaner (or clearer) banks can make the end result the better. And for clear communication, we talked about the importance of investing time in learning exactly what medical people are talking about. [Read more…]
The transformation of medical banking now well under way will only accelerate in the coming years with the implementation of the sweeping changes prescribed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Under the law, health plans must adopt electronic processing protocols by July 2013, and a series of other provisions will take effect through 2018. So it’s no surprise that HIMMS estimates the banking industry is investing more than $100 million a year in technologies to process claims and other transactions for providers of health services.
Banks clearly have recognized that the lock boxes that doctors and hospitals routinely use for process efficiency and risk mitigation can also help improve the flow of critical information and financial transactions. From their position in the direct path of the standard process — and with the appropriate technology solutions – banks see they can move from mere cash management into healthcare transaction processing. HIMSS goes as far as to suggest that banks can adapt their online and mobile banking platforms to also accommodate the transfer of patients’ electronic medical records from one health care provider to another. [Read more…]
The future of hospital financial management was the focus of the 2012 Annual HIMSS Conference and Exhibition at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas.
Attendees were able to experience digital technologies firsthand through real-world case studies that demonstrated how these financial tools have sped revenue cycles for profit and non-profit providers alike. As always HIMSS was a huge event with well over 1 million square feet of exhibit space and hundreds of sessions to attend over the event’s five days. [Read more…]
While there are other issues in healthcare payment automation, the focus remains on how to automate the debt remittance process. That was one of my takeaways from last week’s Healthcare Payments Automation Summit in Orlando, Fla., where I led a panel discussion on healthcare remittance processing.
HPAS brings together healthcare payers, providers and third-party processors, as well as leading financial institutions and technology solutions vendors. And the focus these days clearly is automating claims remittance – the capture of paper or electronic information and auto-posting it — and in reconciling capabilities. Their other area of high interest is denial management. Companies want to know what’s paid, what’s not paid, why, and deal with it as soon as possible. [Read more…]
The focus at IFO Fusion, held this year at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, is still clearly on the world of accounts payable automation; but the audience at this year’s well-attended event also had interest in a number of other areas, including cloud-based solutions, outsourcing, and learning more about topics like medical banking and digital mail.
