Family Care Network
Family Care Network (FCN) came to Lucid looking for a quicker, easier method to process patient refunds.
Medical billing is a complicated process that is challenging to manage. To ensure cash flow, providers must try to estimate patient co-payments at the time of service. With multiple providers and so many insurance plans in use, that complicated process often results in a necessary patient refund. While FCN’s medical billing software was able to indicate a patient credit balance, it did not communicate with the accounting system in order to issue the patient a refund. As a result, refunds were being manually entered and issued in a cumbersome and time-consuming process that required steps from multiple employees.
A thorough analysis by Lucid of FCN’s independent medical billing and accounting systems allowed us to identify the capabilities and strengths/weaknesses of each system. We observed the process they currently had in place and designed a workflow that we could create an improved solution around. The final result was a solution that pulled data from the medical billing system, prepared the data, and imported both patient and transaction information into the accounting system. From there, the existing check payment process could easily remit payments to patients. This newly streamlined process also allowed for the proper posting of refunds to the correct general ledger accounts without any manual intervention. Department and doctor information were now automatically pulled from the billing system and imported into the accounting software instead of being keyed in manually. This improvement ensured refunds were costed correctly. In addition to simplifying the payment process, we improved FCN’s communication process as well. The newly implemented process allowed FCN staff to quickly locate and provide status information to a patient inquiring about a refund. Furthermore, wait time for patients to receive their refunds was greatly decreased.
What previously took days to complete with the help of many different hands now took minutes to process reducing both costs and frustration and significantly improving efficiency.