Precision Practice Management Case Study
Saint Luke's Hospital
Early in 2001, St. Luke's Hospital was looking to improve medical billing reimbursement for its hospital-owned physician practices. The hospital chose Medical Manager as the practice management software on which those practices would run, and Precision was selected to provide the software support for the hospital's new Medical Manager system. Twenty practices were converted and trained on the new software, with Precision also taking on the billing services for sixteen of the twenty practices. A full financial conversion was made from the hospital's old system which eliminated the need for a "run out" of pre-conversion claims. Instead, all open claims were programmed to transfer to the new Medical Manager software. "Precision quickly improved cash flow," says Rhonda McKissic, Manager - Physician Financial Services. "They were very methodical in directing significant resources to getting results for us. And Precision was very helpful in structuring their month-end reporting to suit the hospital's needs - we have rigid month-end cutoffs to honor and a short amount of time in which to report results. From the beginning, Precision was able to get us the data we needed in a timely and accurate manner and in the way we needed to see it presented."
In October of 2002, St. Luke's decided to transition seven more practices over to Precision's support. These practices had been using a legacy software platform that had become outdated. "Precision transitioned these practices seamlessly", says Rick Sonne, Director of Managed Care and Physician Practices. "There were no conversion or training issues and Precision quickly integrated the month-end reporting for these practices into the same structure as had been established for the rest of the practices and departments supported by Precision."
In May of 2005, St. Luke's asked Precision to assist with medical billing for several employed hospitalists, defining for them the most effective format for medical billing. St. Luke's subsequently added other practices and physicians, each time asking Precision to modify its service offering to match the opportunities and challenges presented to the hospital. In July 2006, Precision commenced medical billing services for St. Luke's emergency room and urgent care facilities. In order to facilitate the efficient capture of patient demographic and insurance information, as well as CPT and diagnosis information (without duplicate entry), Precision developed a custom electronic interface with the hospital's STAR software system whereby all necessary billing information was downloaded for review, update and modification prior to claims submission. Laura Holt, Director of Patient Financial Services, says "Precision worked well with St. Luke's IT staff on the data interface, and then very effectively managed their end of the transition. The results speak for themselves - Precision now manages all professional fee billing for St Luke's, in concert with the hospital CBO's management of all facility (technical) billing. The two teams effectively work in concert, each with its own focus, and the results of this teamwork has been tremendous, and very visible to the bottom line."
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