Does your organization have a central business processing office?

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Administration
• Revenue Cycle Management

Background:

• Traditional central billing offices (CBOs) face challenges in optimizing revenue cycles for hospital-owned physician practices.
• Lack of direct accountability within practice settings can hinder efficient revenue capture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a central processing office (CPO) as an alternative to traditional CBOs.
• To determine if CPOs can improve revenue cycle performance in physician practices.

Main Methods:

• Implementing a CPO model that assigns revenue cycle responsibilities to practice-level staff.
• Empowering practice personnel to identify and resolve errors at the point of patient interaction.

Main Results:

• The CPO model enhances accountability by placing ownership of revenue cycle steps with those closest to the patient.
• Delegating error resolution to practices allows the CPO to focus on complex claims and payer negotiations.

Conclusions:

• A CPO structure offers a significant improvement over traditional CBOs for hospital-owned physician practices.
• Assigning accountability and empowering practice staff are key to optimizing the revenue cycle.