What is Revenue Integrity?

At its core, revenue integrity is about safeguarding the financial health of a healthcare organization. It goes beyond ensuring services are accurately billed and reimbursed—it is a commitment to regulatory compliance, precise documentation, and operational efficiency in all revenue-related processes. This commitment materializes as an improvement program that targets revenue leaks by periodically reviewing clinical, coding, billing, and compliance standards.

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Revenue Integrity Versus Revenue Cycle: What's the Difference?

While revenue integrity and the revenue cycle are interconnected, they are not identical. Revenue cycle management (RCM), as explained in this detailed blog post, is the financial process that manages the lifecycle of a patient's account, from initial registration and appointment scheduling to the final payment of a balance.

In contrast, revenue integrity takes a broader view. It plays an essential role in the revenue cycle and stretches into areas like regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. The essence of revenue integrity lies in the questions it raises such as:

• Are we charging correctly for services?
• Is our documentation accurate and current?
• Are we in line with all compliance requirements?
• Is the pricing consistent and defendable?
• Do prices line up with fee schedules?

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The focus on these questions is what differentiates revenue integrity. By ensuring the accuracy of service charges, the reliability of documentation, and the adherence to compliance regulations, revenue integrity enables the revenue cycle to function optimally. Embracing a comprehensive revenue integrity program can mean capturing lost revenue, reducing compliance risks, enhancing the quality of patient care, and preventing up to 90% of denied claims.

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An Example of Revenue Integrity in Healthcare

To understand revenue integrity in practice, let's consider a study of healthcare organizations that implement a Charge Description Master (CDM) management system. A CDM is a comprehensive list of items billable to a patient or a patient's health insurance provider. The study found that hospital systems using a finely-tuned CDM were able to ensure the accurate capturing of charges, standardize service descriptions, and stay up-to-date with frequently shifting regulatory requirements. The icing on the cake was the considerable boost in revenue. This example underscores the fact that revenue integrity isn't just a lofty concept, but a practical tool that plays a pivotal role in improving the fiscal health of healthcare organizations.

Effective RCM companies such as pMD can leverage technology to streamline parts of the revenue cycle while providing workflow consultation services that improve your overall revenue management and integrity.  

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How pMD^® Can Help

At pMD^®, our mission is to streamline and optimize the patient care episode and the revenue cycle. Through our advanced, end-to-end practice management and revenue cycle solutions, we can help practices consolidate vendors, reduce costs, streamline workflows, improve patient care and satisfaction, and collect their maximum reimbursement more quickly.

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Not sure what a vendor could do to improve your behavioral health billing? Contact pMD^® for a no-commitment financial impact analysis by our team of healthcare RCM experts free of charge!

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