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How Advanced and Highly Integrated Billing Automation Can Help Improve Workflow Efficiency and the Clean Claim Pass-Through Rate
July 22, 2024
With labor costs rising while the qualified laboratory labor force continues to shrink, it's becoming harder to find quality staff and do so at a price that one can afford.
This coupled with an incremental shift in lower margins and new lab testing trends, makes it clear that there is a growing need to automate as much of the clinical laboratory management as possible.
This includes streamlining the laboratory billing process and lab RCM (revenue cycle management meaning) by maximizing returns and decreasing revenue loss due to user error, capacity constraints, and changing regulatory requirements.
All of this can be easily accomplished through laboratory billing solutions that leverage RCM cycle automation.
Learn More: The LigoLab Difference: Demonstrating the Power of Lab RCM Automation in the Clinical Laboratory
To remain relevant, operationally efficient, and financially profitable, now is the time to invest in scalable laboratory information system technology with advanced billing software for labs.
Failing to do so will compromise laboratory efficiency and expose it to audit risk. Increasing both net collections and ongoing overall profit, while also being able to pivot where needed, is critical to survive and flourish in this ever-changing and increasingly competitive lab revenue cycle management environment.
Why Consider Upgrading Your Lab RCM Cycle Now?
As we all know, more medical labs are entering this healthcare space, bringing added competition that can force even lower margins. Inflation is an ongoing problem and so is the inversely decreasing labor force. This is evident even as testing volume trajects upward thanks to factors like genomic and home testing market resurgence.
In addition, payers, through lengthy delayed appeals processing and other disparaging tactics, are making it harder for clinical labs and anatomic pathology groups to receive full reimbursement for services rendered, forcing them to accept a lower total percentage on return as the new normal.
Those lab operators who aren’t prepared to address these issues head-on will continue receiving lower percentage returns and accumulating exponential losses.
The time to stop this laboratory billing trend and future-proof one’s lab business is now.
Learn More: Reduce Denials and Stop Revenue Leakage With Integrated Laboratory Billing Management
Why Choose LigoLab’s Laboratory Billing Solutions for Your Lab RCM?
So now that we’ve made the case for lab RCM cycle automation as a vital part of pathology lab management, the question next becomes which RCM management company to partner with.
The LigoLab LIS & RCM Laboratory Informatics Platform has built-in laboratory billing functionality like no other, including TC/PC splitting, claim scrubbing, and unlimited custom auto-coding. These RCM tools allow users to automate as much of the laboratory billing process as required.
Every step of the laboratory billing process is integrated as a component of the Billing Encounter order data entity housed within the all-in-one LIS system & lab RCM platform, giving lab technicians consolidated access to all relevant case information such as test setup, patient demographics, specimen details, slide access, and coding and other lab billing data.
This real-time, accurate, and precise claim submission workflow gives labs an automated laboratory billing process without errors and with limitless capacity. It addresses laboratory workflow challenges and is highly transparent for granular metric analytics.
All this collectively gives medical laboratories using the LigoLab platform an edge over others and represents an effective response to both regulatory and labor-related challenges, making it possible to achieve maximum return and profit now and into the future.
Learn More: How Billing and Coding Automation Increases Laboratory Revenue
Stop Using Your Legacy Laboratory Billing System!
If your legacy laboratory billing system doesn’t support lab RCM cycle automation, you’re likely losing substantial revenue returns. The amount of money left on the table simply through revenue that fell through the cracks due to user error, labor shortages, or test volume surges (and subsequent lab RCM process backlogs) can be astounding.
Couple that with the time/value of money and the true cost associated with increased time in A/R, rejections, denials, and the lengthy appeals processes (all typically incurred due to something very avoidable at the start of the laboratory billing process), and you have enormous revenue leakage that sometimes is not even initially apparent.
How scary is that?
Fortunately, with the right laboratory billing software partner and an automated lab RCM cycle solution, you can focus on high-margin new business and let automation handle the rest.
It’s fair to say that most labs are unsatisfied with their laboratory billing solutions and see the importance of plugging the revenue holes, but, not all of them realize that the only sure way to do this is through a fully integrated, multi-purpose LIS system and lab revenue cycle management platform that streamlines the laboratory billing process and seamlessly connects all the RCM dots, doing so in an error-free, volume-limitless, and 100 percent automated fashion.
The facts speak for themselves. Through effective laboratory revenue cycle management automation, forward-thinking lab operators are seeing tremendous increases in profitability even before a single additional lab test is performed.
What's more the efficiency and data-rich transparency available within the platform allows them to focus on new high-margin business, and enables them to increase their revenue and bottom-line net collections exponentially.
Cost/Return Benefit - Is LigoLab’s Lab RCM Cycle Automation Worth the Cost?
Simply put, the returns far outweigh the cost, and LigoLab’s pricing structure is designed to assure this. Unlike siloed lab billing automation add-ons, LigoLab’s fully integrated laboratory information system & lab RCM platform is structured in a way that transforms laboratory billing from a ‘back-end’ RCM process to a ‘front-end’ RCM process.
This ensures every test is properly and accurately processed from the start and throughout lab workflow, providing complete and accessible compliance at every stage.
The result is a seamless auto-bill. This saves time, and money, ensures accuracy, increases volume throughput, and improves payer turnaround time and total clean claim processing, leading to increased revenue and profit.
With LigoLab, you can rest easy knowing you will always be a net positive.
With LigoLab’s integrated platform serving as the centerpiece of operations, your lab will enjoy major increases in workflow efficiency.
- Workflow efficiency increases across the board due to transparency, accountability, and uniform distribution of tasks.
- Time in A/R is reduced as the laboratory billing system functions in real-time while handling the lab workflow, regardless of volume.
- Real-time RCM tools like patient demographic and payer data validation further reduce rejections due to data inaccuracies.
LigoLab’s rule-driven lab revenue cycle management automation ensures no claims fall through the cracks and lab billing transitions from a “back-end process” to a “front-end” process with claims automatically routed and processed in the appropriate queues.
Additionally, virtually all user errors and delays are eliminated and pre-configured “hard” and “soft” stops eliminate the potential for more errors. With LigoLab, you can say goodbye to duplicate claims, inaccurate refunds, and payer compliance issues.
Even better, the advanced informatics platform provides detailed insight into key performance indicators (KPIs) with robust dashboards and reporting tools.
- Consistent access to performance/throughput metrics no matter the volume.
- Direct access to various user-friendly and customizable monitoring tools with innovative data organization, such as the Statistic Inquiry tool with various custom filter options, the Dynamic Reports tool, the Dashboard tool with custom widgets, and the Revenue Forecasting tool.
- Clear, transparent audit trail visibility that ensures full accountability and per-user and per-department productivity with the corresponding lab billing data tracked from start to finish.
Another important feature the LigoLab platform offers is scalability which allows you to future-proof your laboratory operations for whatever is to come, doing so easily, quickly, and with virtually no additional operational cost.
- Instant lab billing scalability allows labs to seamlessly pivot to new and lucrative business opportunities that arise due to market landscape shifts.
- Easily configurable laboratory workflow management with rules makes lab RCM cycle automation possible, regardless of prior operational setup.
Usually with a new laboratory billing system comes the associated downtime and setup complexity but that’s not the case with LigoLab’s integrated LIS system software & lab RCM platform.
- Fast setup with minimal to no learning curve compared to time spent on employee training.
- Support is always one click away via email, phone, or video conferencing.
- A constantly operating around-the-clock laboratory billing system with no downtime, regardless of the workload.
Moreover, if you’re worried about cost (and let's face it, who isn't), LigoLab is priced to fit any laboratory budget.
Our laboratory billing software license is structured to eliminate sticker shock, hidden fees, and never-ending incremental costs. The software makes improving efficiency and generating incremental bottom-line profit much easier and faster than previous lab billing software iterations.
Learn More: LigoLab Informatics Platform: Uniquely Designed to Deliver Maximum Value
Our lab partners see net collections increase significantly more than the operational cost and that’s without added labor expenses. The labor hours saved that would otherwise have been spent on remittance and appeals will more than justify the price of the license.
Additionally, the platform helps save jobs due to the increased efficiency and net return per hour and employee, freeing up staff to focus on more complex, unique, and rewarding situational cases.
Lastly, LigoLab provides a 100 percent turn-key setup with an intuitive lab workflow and ongoing one-on-one support, so going live has never been more seamless.
With LigoLab success is typically associated with a proactive, forward-thinking structural organization that enables seamless laboratory revenue cycle management scalability and nimble pivoting to stay ahead of ever-changing industry trends. Labs need to be prepared for the unknown so they can focus on their core business instead of the operational challenges that all too often coincide with this growth.
The LigoLab LIS & RCM Laboratory Informatics Platform is based on this premise and designed to do just that. Void of any data silos, interface disconnects, or conflicting data metrics, this single source-of-truth informatics platform integrates all laboratory operations while using powerful rule-based automation tailored to the specific and multi-variant needs of the lab.
The platform does so simply, transparently, accurately, and most importantly, efficiently, maximizing lab workflow throughput, revenue, and net collections at every step.
In closing, you too can join the many labs that have experienced exponential growth soon after incorporating the LigoLab platform into their laboratory business.
To learn more, we invite you to connect with a LigoLab RCM Specialist so we can answer any questions that you might have and show you firsthand how lab revenue cycle management automation can transform your laboratory operations and finances.
