Patient Access Monthly Source: The Academy of Healthcare Revenue
Hospital’s Innovative Communication Strategies Reduce Wait Times, Enhance Admissions Process
Registration desks and waiting rooms,
often crowded with patients in line for
medical service, do not always provide an
optimal atmosphere for patient registration.
By devising innovative approaches
to improve this environment, or by completely
shifting certain patient access functions
to somewhere more amenable (such
as at bedside), the potential for staff to
record accurate information, correctly classify
patient status, and collect point of service
fees can greatly increase.
Dublin Methodist Hospital (a newly opened,
94-bed facility near Columbus,
Ohio) is pioneering an innovative patient
access process in which patients are
greeted as soon as they enter the facility
and then are immediately guided to their
rooms. The service is completely remote,
with all registration needs completed at
bedside. Dublin Methodist can succeed in
this innovative approach thanks in some
part to advanced technology, but ultimately
it is staff communication that drives the
success. The hospital’s strategy, in demonstrating
the benefits of constant dialogue
between staff and patients, has lessons for
all providers hoping to improve or enhance
their admissions processes.
Dublin Methodist’s “door-to-bed service”
eliminates stations (such as a registration
desk) in favor of remote registration.
As soon as an individual arrives at one of
the hospital’s main entrance desks, a hospital
liaison escorts them to a room in the
proper department. After a nurse administers
triage, a patient access staff member
known as a Registration Associate is contacted
via their personal wireless device
to come into the room and register the
patient. From this point, a full registration
is conducted by scanning patient identification material (e.g., driver’s license and
insurance cards), verifying the information,
collecting point of service fees, and more.
When patient access staff have fulfilled
their role in the revenue cycle, they signal
via the hospital’s integrated computer network
that the patient is ready for the next
step, whether that is financial counseling,
physician consultation, or other processes.
All registration requirements have been
completed in the only location patients are
expected to be throughout their visit: their hospital room.
Of course, not every hospital has the
physical layout and resources Dublin Methodist
uses to realize its comprehensive,
remote patient access service. However,
looking past the technology, it can be seen
that the true power of Dublin Methodist’s
strategy lies in its communication techniques—
communication amongst patient
access staff, communication with other
hospital departments, and communication
with patients—detailed as follows:
Communicating Amongst Patient
Access Staff. All Dublin Methodist
patient access staff wear wireless
headsets, which they can use to
communicate with their colleagues in
case they need help with registering and
admitting patients. Again, the presence
of technology is obvious in this case,
but the idea of providing open and
accessible assistance to patient access
staff is a universal concept. Ensuring
that at least one experienced staff
member or manager is available to aid
in patient registration enables other
staff who may have questions to handle
their work with skill and efficiency.
Communicating With Other Hospital
Departments. The same computer
interface Dublin Methodist’s patient
access staff utilize to inform other
departments that registration is
complete can be viewed throughout
the hospital network at all times.
This allows constant monitoring of
patient progress, and it allows staff to
seamlessly circulate important patient
data. Patients become frustrated when
they have to repeat information to
various departments, or wait for new
staff to arrive, and
these frustrations
slow down revenue
cycle processes as
well. Formulating
strategies to
improve the
handoff of information between stages
of the revenue cycle (such as from preregistration
to registration) can help
minimize the possibility that important
data could get lost in the transition
from department to department, and
this begins with enhanced front-end
strategies.
Communicating With Patients. While
it may seem that Dublin Methodist’s
modern patient access methods are
focused primarily on streamlining the
revenue cycle, the hospital has made
sure to keep the patient experience at
the forefront of any decision. Adrah
Forrest—the hospital’s Operations
Manager of Patient Registration—
explained to The Academy that this
is not a conflicting task, with patients
generally enjoying the new process. She
notes, “Our waiting rooms are empty.
We have them, but they’re empty
because we just have patients come
right back [to the rooms]. Patients
like that somebody comes to them,
closes the door, gives them privacy,
and does everything right there.” By
facilitating an environment in which
staff and patients can work through
the registration process together, one-on-one, the situation ultimately favors
both parties. Patient access staff can
effectively register the patient, and the
patient is treated to fast, personalized
service.
Although it is still early to deliver decisive
results (Dublin Methodist just opened
in January), patient satisfaction scores are
already in the 98th percentile and registration
accuracy is about 92%. The fact that
these kinds of results are surfacing from a
brand new hospital, with brand new systems
and a relatively low patient intake
(whereby bad marks can more severely
affect any data) is a testament to the capability
of advanced communication strategies.
Dublin Methodist Hospital’s emphasis
on communication strategies represents
to all hospitals the potential for improvement.
Enhancing staff, patient, and interdepartmental
communication is a key
strategy that patient access departments
can look to in order to improve the patient
experience and streamline front-end processes.
The Academy of Healthcare Revenue
The Academy of Healthcare Revenue is a membership-based community that provides healthcare leaders with objective research focused specifically on the healthcare revenue cycle. Members receive an unlimited supply of all research--including benchmarking and best practice reports, implementation tools, monthly journals, attendance to virtual conferences, and more--designed to enable them to improve their revenue cycle processes and financial health from within. Furthermore, The Academy's membership offering is tailored to team members throughout the revenue cycle, from executive leadership to patient access, coding, billing and collections, and clinical staff, helping to drive process improvement efforts revenue cycle-wide. Collecting in Healthcare is one of four journals written by The Academy of Healthcare Revenue monthly.
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Media Contact Andrea Morrill
Research Director
262-782-7919
Email:
