Build Accountability in Your Revenue Cycle

Revenue cycle managers constantly search for the perfect benchmark information to compare their team's work with others.

Don't search too hard, says Michael S. Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, associate vice president of patient access services for Apollo Health Street, a national revenue cycle solutions firm in Bloomfield, NJ.

It can be good to compare nationally or even regionally, but some of the best benchmarks are right under your roof.

Benchmark against yourself, Friedberg said in the September 22, HCPro, Inc. audio conference, "Use Patient Access Benchmarks to Improve Registration Accuracy."

Hold your team accountable. Do you sit back regularly and look at the big picture for your team rather than just put out fires?

In the audio conference, Friedberg pointed to passages in "Leadership," former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's 2002 book, as some great examples of holding staff members accountable.

Guiliani met with the leaders of each of NYC's police precincts once a week, reviewing crime numbers. If there were a rise in certain crimes, the mayor asked why and what the respective leader was doing about it.

Giuliani built accountability into New York city government. You can build it into your revenue cycle team.

Dunn Memorial Hospital in Bedford, IN, is doing it now.