As published in Iroquois Health Care Newsletter -  (download PDF of the article)

OUTSOURCING BUSINESS OFFICE MANAGEMENT SAVES MONEY

A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital, a 128-bed acute care facility with an attached 130-bed nursing home, offers a broad spectrum of health care to Oneonta and surrounding communities with their renowned specialties in emergency, cancer, cardiac, and primary care. . In early 2005, Fox decided to outsource the day-to-day management of their business office to InterPro Medical Solutions.

As one of the special programs offered to members by United Iroquois Shared Services (UISS), InterPro delivers a single vendor solution for successfully managing revenue life cycle, from transcription through records management and beyond.  Each solution is customized to solve real problems and to deliver measurable results that improve a hospital’s bottom line.

For the past several years, Fox Hospital utilized InterPro’s self-pay billing services for uninsured patients and patients who failed to provide complete billing information.  By allowing InterPro to rectify these situations, Fox was able to free their internal staff to focus on other core tasks while increasing their collections.  Due to the success of this venture, a decision was made to have InterPro manage the daily operations of the hospital’s business office.  Mark Wright, Vice President of Finance at A.O. Fox Hospital, spearheaded this effort and was instrumental in the transition to InterPro.

“The first thing that was done was an overall revenue cycle assessment.  Once completed, a detailed work plan was put in place for implementation,” Wright said.  “This plan included an extensive Q.A. of the hospital registration process, resulting in a fix on the front end that improved collection days and reduced outstanding credit balances due to a significantly higher number of clean claims.”

With this latest accomplishment, InterPro is now working with Wright on billing services for Fox’s Urgent Care Center, the emergency room, and their psychiatric physicians.

For more information about InterPro or UISS Special Programs, contact Don Gearing at (518) 383-5060 or dgearing@iroquois.org.

The Iroquois Healthcare Alliance advocates on behalf of 56 hospitals and health care system members and the communities they serve in Upstate New York.