From Lockbox Chaos to Clarity: Seven Reasons Why Providers Need AI-Powered Correspondence Management
by Manjappa Belur Chittaranjan,
President and co-Founder, CognitiveHealth Technologies, LLC
Traditional correspondence management is failing healthcare Providers
Healthcare organizations, whether small practices or large health systems, often face significant challenges in managing communications from payers, attorneys, auditors, and patients. These communications are not simple or straightforward; they frequently involve detailed demands for action, explanations, and the completion of complex forms that require careful attention and accuracy.
Classifying correspondence documents and determining their purpose before routing them to the appropriate work queues is an extremely challenging and time-consuming process. The complexity and volume of these documents make accurate sorting and handling difficult. Additionally, the high cost of document management systems can be discouraging for many organizations, adding another layer of difficulty to effective correspondence management.
The result? Loads of manual work, errors, and the constant headache of correctly sorting through documents and assigning them. Providers end up employing more staff to read paper EOBs (which ironically come as scanned images!), post cash, and then reconcile payments. It’s a chaotic process that’s very costly and prone to missteps.
Why adding more staff is not the solution.
Healthcare organizations often resort to hiring more staff when the volume and complexity of managing correspondence increases. However, simply adding more employees during staffing shortages is a temporary solution that does not address the underlying challenges. This approach not only increases operational inefficiencies and the risk of errors, but also significantly raises staffing expenses.
Labor costs already account for over half of total hospital expenses, and increased reliance on additional or contract staff can drive these costs even higher. As staffing costs escalate, healthcare organizations may experience reduced profit margins and face financial strain, making it harder to invest in patient care, technology, or facility improvements. It’s a vicious cycle and one that gets harder if not dealt with in a timely manner.
It’s clear that we must change how we handle correspondence and manage it to boost revenue, reduce denials, and nail compliance. Healthcare organizations must embrace new solutions at the cutting edge of this transformation, all while keeping costs low and getting more bang for their buck. This is where AI-powered correspondence management comes into the picture.
Seven reasons to embrace AI-powered Correspondence Management
Timely correspondence management in a provider’s billing office with the help of AI offers several significant benefits that enhance both operational efficiency and financial health. Here are some of the key advantages:
- Improved Cash Flow: Prompt processing of claims-related correspondence ensures quicker resolutions of any issues, leading to faster reimbursements from payers and improved cash flow.
- Reduced Denials and Rejections: Efficient correspondence management helps address and rectify issues that may lead to claim denials or rejections, increasing the likelihood of first pass claim acceptance.
- Enhanced Patient Satisfaction: Timely responses to legal requests, bankruptcy notices or any other patient inquiries and concerns about billing can significantly enhance patient satisfaction and trust in the healthcare provider.
- Increased Staff Productivity in AR and Billing departments: An organized and timely correspondence system allows staff to handle inquiries and resolve issues more efficiently, freeing them to focus on other critical tasks and reducing burnout.
- Better Compliance: Keeping up with correspondence ensures compliance with regulations regarding claim submission deadlines and the timely filing of appeals, protecting the hospital from legal and financial penalties.
- Accurate and Up-to-date Patient Records: Regular management of correspondence ensures that patient records are updated with the latest information, which is crucial for accurate billing and future healthcare services.
- Decreased Administrative Costs: Timely correspondence management can significantly lower administrative costs by reducing the time and resources spent on managing backlogs and reworking denied claims.
Implementing AI-powered correspondence management in a hospital billing office boosts financial stability, operational excellence, and customer service quality. Instead of just adding more hands, AI-powered correspondence management offers a smart solution to the challenges in healthcare RCM, streamlining processes and reducing errors.
AI-Powered correspondence management by iCAN™
CognitiveHealth Technologies, pioneer of healthcare process automation, has partnered with recognized health systems to build iCAN™ – Integrated Cognitive Agents Network, purpose-built for the Healthcare Revenue Cycle. iCAN™ can run simple or complex workflows in the Healthcare Revenue Cycle, including correspondence management. It is configured to:
👉 Receive correspondence documents, read, categorize, split, and clean them using powerful AI models.
👉 Extract the data from the documents and attach them to respective accounts in the EMR with no manual intervention.
CognitiveHealth offers a document management lite module for those who do not have the means to spend on separate document management applications.
Benefits of using iCAN™ for correspondence management
iCAN™ was not just adapted for healthcare; it was purpose-built for its complexities, initially co-developed with leading partners. It has since evolved significantly into a sophisticated multi-agent AI system designed to master high-volume, intricate healthcare workflows:
👉 Faster Response Times
- Reduces lag between receiving correspondence and taking action
- Prevents missed appeal deadlines and timely filing issues
👉 Improves Cash Flow
- Enables faster appeal submissions, resulting in quicker overturns
- Avoids preventable write-offs from missed deadlines
👉 Scales Without Hiring More FTEs
- Works 24/7 to triage correspondence even during off hours or staffing gaps
- Scaled effortlessly using the hyperconverged infrastructure across departments and facilities
👉 Boosts Operational Visibility & Tracking
- Provides real-time dashboards on correspondence types, status, and bottlenecks
- Creates audit trails and improves compliance
Using iCAN™ for Correspondence Management has delivered remarkable results for customers. They’ve eliminated 60 days of backlog, with iCAN™ managing 100% of paper EOBs and pushing them to the EMR for timely attention and action. The staff time for denial and AR resolution has been reduced by over 50%, and helped with adding more clinicians/groups without the need for additional staff.
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