Posted By Carolyn Weaver, Executive Consultant

As I have said many times, cardiovascular revenue should be 25% to 50% of the hospital’s bottom line. But how do you really know if you are capturing all of the revenues? Many hospitals tell me that they check charts against the charges, but I have not found too many hospitals that have a specific team that tracks patients from registration through payment. It is typically done in silos with finance looking at the back side and invasive lab or surgery staff looking at the charges. Only when a large discrepancy arises, does the issue get attention.

Recommendations for managing this better are:

• Develop a dedicated cardiovascular revenue review team.
• Track and review inpatient and outpatient services from a financial perspective (to be performed by the team). In a large cardiovascular program, it should be a percentage; in a small program every case, particularly every invasive case, should be reviewed.
• Ensure that benchmarking is developed by program and types of invasive cases.
• Educate the members of the team as well as clinical staff.
• Give kudos as things change.

Would you like some more information and a case example? See http://www.healthmgttech.com/features/2009_april/0409_advantage.aspx