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Create a Multifaceted Revenue Cycle Employee Development Path to Strengthen Retention

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

There are a growing number of ways to meet the career development expectations of healthcare revenue cycle employees. Borrowing from what has worked well for frontline medical staff, consider mentorship/ apprenticeship opportunities for both new and seasoned team members. Offering incentives such as continuing education and certification programs is equally valuable.

Create an Apprenticeship of Sorts

“Once someone is hired, an apprenticeship or internship with someone who’s been around for a while exposes them to the entire scope of the career, not just what they are doing at an entry level,” Gurzynski-Wells says. “It also benefits the person who is serving as their escort into the workplace.”

On the education front, training such as nThrive’s Outpatient (OP) Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist (CDIS) presents the opportunity for all revenue cycle staff to enhance their skillsets around critical functions, thus enhancing overall revenue cycle performance. A program which includes topics such as: medical record review, coding, evaluation and management, regulations, and compliance, as well as content covering insurance billing and denials management also creates a more versatile workforce that’s likely to remain stable, lowering HR-related costs around hiring and training and freeing up funds for ongoing advancement programs.

Offer Continuous Learning

“Organizations need to invest in, and engage with, their staff,” Gurzynski-Wells says. “What’s good for the staffer is usually good for the department—and the organization. Creating a workplace where continuous learning is in place is essential because the workforce is changing all the time. We’re continually tackling new and different skills gaps. When you have learning opportunities in place, you can increase performance as well as retain talent.”

In addition to such immediate return on investment, the facility benefits from factors such as improved insurance eligibility verification, better charge capture, more appeals won, better point of service collections, and higher coding accuracy. Ongoing education also helps revenue cycle staff engage more fully with the patients they serve, enhancing the overall patient experience.

Education That Benefits Staff AND Patients

“For instance, we are growing programming by looking into training in areas such as how to best to advocate for patients when it comes to helping them understand their bills,” Gurzynski-Wells says. “The idea of a sound educational program is to cover everything from when a patient first schedules their stay through the time when there is a zero dollar balance on the account. When you can enhance the focus on areas like price transparency, you can alleviate a lot of patient anxiety—which is what everyone’s goal should be in the first place.”

This blog post excerpts the HealthStream article Growth Potential: Career Pathways Offering Mentorship and Education Can Engage and Motivate Revenue Cycle Staff. Other content about enhancing and protecting the revenue cycle workforce includes:

  • Turnover and retention challenges among healthcare revenue cycle staff
  • Mentoring programs also enhance performance
  • Certifications, badges also have strong appeal
  • Pre-employment testing protects employer investment

Read the full article.