Why RCM? 3 questions answered about the revenue cycle management outsourcing industry

Do you know the biggest headache for healthcare providers? It's not treatment satisfaction for patients. It’s revenue management. 

The medicine for this headache is revenue cycle management (RCM). Because RCM requires specialized business skills, the revenue cycle management outsourcing industry is growing rapidly.

The future for RCM outsourcing is bright, says product and service provider Athelas: “In 2021, the American RCM market was valued at over $126 billion. The industry is only poised to grow, with a projected 10.3% growth rate through the year 2030, according to Grand View Research Group.”

With the revenue cycle management outsourcing industry taking off and beginning to show up in your professional life as a dental team member, you likely have some questions. 

DCS is a revenue cycle management solution. After over 10 years in the industry, we’ve evolved our services to provide end-to-end revenue cycle management for both dental practices and groups. This is because of how effective RCM is for helping dental professionals collect more, and worry less. 

This article will answer 3 common questions about the revenue cycle management outsourcing industry. By having these answers, you’ll be able to dive deeper into revenue cycle management outsourcing, and decide if it’s a tool you’d like to take advantage of. 

1. What is revenue cycle outsourcing?

Revenue cycle outsourcing is a strategy to optimize the financial health of your dental business by using the expertise of an RCM service partner. RCM experts will support your dental team by supporting several essential business functions.

Related: Defining end-to-end revenue cycle management for dentists: Deep dive

RCM streamlines the following processes: 

• Credentialing
• Insurance verification
• Insurance collection
• A/R Management  
• Patient billing

A revenue cycle outsourcing strategy gives your in-house team necessary resources to create a smoother office workflow, a better patient experience, and increase production. 

This leads us to our next question: Why outsource RCM?

2. Why outsource revenue cycle management?

The revenue cycle management outsourcing industry is growing because it offers solutions to the biggest pain points in the dental industry: low ROI from billing and reimbursement.

“Revenue cycle management significantly impacts your bottom line, so you shouldn’t trust this task to just about anyone. But if you find a trusted, experienced company, the benefits of outsourcing are endless.” -HealthTech

Ever-changing rules impact the dental industry, continually making quick reimbursement more difficult. Dental teams are overwhelmed trying to keep up. This raises overhead, delays payment, and hurts the patient experience– a snowball which affects business growth negatively.

When you work with RCM experts, they multiply the value of your in-house team.  

Partnering with RCM experts improves revenue and provides additional benefits to your dental practice or group, including: 

• Increased efficiency
• Improved cash flow
• Reduced errors
• Enhanced compliance
• Better patient experience

Related: 5 benefits of revenue cycle management you'll see at your dental business

Dental teams collect from patients and insurance sooner with the support of RCM. This revenue has a greater value to your dental business because:

• Faster payments reduce the costs associated with bringing revenue in 
• More cash on hand supports growth opportunities, and reduces the financial risk of funds tied up in A/R
• Funds in the bank today are worth more than the promise of funds tomorrow

In addition, with a service like DCS, there’s no need to hire a full-time revenue cycle manager and pay their salary plus benefits. Partnering with RCM experts will help you lower your overhead, while collecting more for your business. That’s more money in your pocket. 

3. Who is outsourcing revenue cycle management in healthcare?

You might be surprised to learn that many dental businesses–DSOs, emerging dental groups, and private practices–are outsourcing their revenue cycle management.

While all of these business models are different in scale, their goals are similar: 

• Increase revenue
• Support continued growth
• Provide an excellent patient experience

And both DSOs and private practices face similar challenges, such as: 

• Finding staff with the right skills and experience
• Transitioning to standardized operations, especially for revenue collection
• Making optimal use of technology

Standardizing processes is typically more of a challenge for DSOs with multiple locations to manage, but private practices benefit from consistent workflows and processes as well. 

Related: Top 5 revenue cycle management problems dental teams and groups face

Partnering with RCM experts will help you overcome each of these challenges because they provide guidance from experience, knowledge of dental RCM best practices, and access to automated technology that will increase your cash flow and efficiency

Will you partner with a revenue cycle management provider?

Revenue cycle management outsourcing has emerged as an effective solution for healthcare providers to streamline their revenue management processes, reduce costs, reduce team member burnout and improve overall patient care.

As providers continue to face challenges in revenue management, RCM outsourcing is likely to become an increasingly important tool in their arsenal.

Ultimately, choosing the right outsourcing partner and adopting best practices will be critical to the success of any RCM outsourcing initiative.

DCS is an end-to-end RCM solution for both private practices and emerging dental groups. To learn more about working with RCM experts, schedule a call with us.