Enhancing Cash Collections And Internal Controls

A white knight emerges to save the crumbling US Healthcare system - patients wielding the tools of consumer driven healthcare. Attempts to curb the rising costs of health insurance have significantly increased enrollment in consumer driven healthcare (CDH) plans. In 2005, enrollment in health savings accounts (HSA) alone increased 220%, and the trend continued in 2006 with a 43% jump in HSA enrollment.1 Currently, over 4.5 million of these low-premium, high- deductible plans are in place, and within the next two years, the US Treasury Department forecasts that 14 million HSA policies will cover nearly 20% of the commercially-insured population (approximately 25-30 million Americans).2 The healthcare industry has not yet realized the full implications of CDH, and providers that are not prepared for the changes may find themselves with sagging revenues and ballooning bad debt expenses.

CDH works on the principle that consumers can lower medical expenses by evaluating medical services with the same set of standards they apply to retail expenditures. As such, medical practices must now consider a number of issues from which they had historically been insulated. Over the last decade, consumers’ out of pocket medical expenses rose from $146.3 billion to $249.4 billion and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) project that this figure will reach $440.8 billion by 2016.3 As payment responsibility shifts from payers to patients, providers must institute proper collections practices and strengthen internal controls. The success of physician practice acquisitions often hinges on how these initial decisions are handled. This white paper examines the issues affecting these decisions and includes insights from several industry veterans whose areas of expertise focus on physician practice acquisitions.

Download this white paper below to read more.