Revenue Cycle Insider

Prioritizing patient care and perspective can make your revenue cycle healthier.

Even though your practice’s revenue cycle is based on numbers, focusing on people humanizes the processes involved, said Christopher Chandler, MHA, MBA, CPC, CGSC, in his AAPC HEALTHCON Regional 2025 presentation “Is Your Revenue Cycle Healthy?” He shared some tips to tidy your revenue cycle, from cleaning up claims to training staff to speak to patients with compassion and empathy — and explained that such tactics have true dollar benefits.

There are some simple measures your staff can take to shore up the integrity of your claims cycle, before the patient’s encounter, during the encounter, and afterward.

Do Due Diligence Before Visits

The labor costs that go into appealing denials (and add to the cost of healthcare in the U.S.) aren’t insignificant; Chandler quoted a Becker’s Hospital Review article saying that providers spend approximately $19.7 billion processing them.

Having a clean claims cycle (claims free of errors or omissions, no corrections needed, processed on the first submission without corrections) is efficient and cost-effective, as you don’t need to pay for the labor and other costs involved in investigating denials and putting together appeals.

Some preservice ideas include making sure front desk staff ask patients about their insurance during check-in at every visit, verifying said insurance and eligibility, obtaining prior authorization, and providing upfront cost estimates, he suggested.

“As a patient, I don’t love it, but it saves a lot of problems down the way, because people do change their insurances,” Chandler said.

Communicating about costs upfront also means delineating what’s included in the costs quoted. “If you’re going in for some sort of biopsy, does the patient know that it’s got a 10-day global period? Do they know what’s included in that package of services?” he asked.

From a patient perspective, this kind of communication can go a long way in satisfaction or dissatisfaction. For example, if there’s a 10-day global period for a minor procedure and you tell your staff to schedule patients 11-14 days out for a follow-up, patients may feel like money is the focus rather than their care, Chandler explained.

“As they feel like they’re more of that focus, they’re not going to fight us as much; they’re more willing to pay and things like that,” he said.

Incorporate Financial Responsibility Into Care and After Services

During the patient’s encounter, staff should confirm details, collect copays or deposits, and make sure patients understand their financial responsibilities, he said. Staff should approach communications with compassion and empathy to integrate financial discussions smoothly into care.

Training staff to approach patient interactions, even for situations like copay requests, is important. Practices should ask themselves whether they’re investing in staff and trying to help them have the skills that they need to help patients feel supported, Chandler said.

Afterward, Chandler recommended making sure your office is issuing timely bills that are easy for patients to understand, with payment plans or financial assistance options. Providing patients with accessible, responsive customer service for billing questions is important, too.

If you provide routine services to patients, like regularly scheduled appointments for treatments, patients especially appreciate practices staying on top of the timeliness of billing. For many people, it’s easier to budget for a known, regular cost than to get an unanticipated lump sum bill for services accrued.

Don’t forget to remove barriers whenever possible. For example, requiring patients to pay over the phone or in person is inconvenient. Providing a secure and safe way to pay online can mean that patients have an easier time paying bills — and are therefore more likely to pay in a timely manner.

“Those conversations are things you can have: Is it easy for your customers, your patients to pay? Or is it difficult? If it’s easy, you’re much more likely to get your money,” he said.

‘Clear Is Kind’

Even if you try to plan for every anticipated situation, you may run into situations where your revenue cycle is severely compromised. Cultivating goodwill with patients can go a long way in preserving any income even when systems break down.

A HEALTHCON Regional attendee described a situation where a payer loaded a provider’s information into their system incorrectly, and so even though the provider was contracted with the payer, every claim was denied. By the time anyone realized what was going on, there was a substantial backlog of claims to process, and the untangling ending up taking two years.

The attendee discussed how they explained what was going on to patients and kept them updated when new information was available, as well as warning them that if they pursued services from this provider at this time, they’d probably receive bills much later, and those bills might be substantial.

Chandler said that this approach was very patient-centric, as people tend to really appreciate transparency. “You’re stuck in a situation that you had no control over, and you tried to make it as transparent to the patient as possible. Clear is kind, and being clear and transparent with the patients — I think that’s a really good approach,” he said.

Even though the practice staff probably felt horrible sending out statements two years after a service, the attendee said that because patients had been warned ahead of time, most were willing to pay. The practice still managed to collect payments, possibly in part because patients felt valued and respected, and could acknowledge that they owed for services rendered, even though the bills weren’t timely.

Check back next month for more tips on evaluating your revenue cycle for optimal health and patient satisfaction.

Rachel Dorrell, MA, MS, CPC-A, CPPM, Production Editor, AAPC