Eastern Plumas Health Care had reason to celebrate as they closed the books on the month of July. Their AR (accounts receivable) days were down to 51, which for a small hospital with a large influx of Medi-Cal Managed Care patients, is a significant achievement. Accounts receivable days measures the average amount of time from the point when a bill comes in to the business office to the time the hospital is paid. Payment, not what is owed, is what matters. And, in a small hospital like EPHC, cash in the bank is critical to keeping the doors open.
\nAccording to Business Office Manager Aprel Martin, there was a period of transition with the new Managed Medi-Cal providers coming on the scene under the Affordable Care Act and, with it, a resulting influx of new patients. Initially, AR days went up. It took awhile for these insurance providers to get up to speed, said Martin. \u201cWe were calling them constantly and getting different answers every time.\u201d Now, claims are coming through with very few errors that have to be corrected, she added.
\nMartin credits her business office team for an AR days\u2019 average \u201cwell below the acceptable industry standard.\u201d When asked if this truly corresponds to more money in the back, Martin responded, \u201cDefinitely. We collected $1.9 million for July to go with those 51 AR days.\u201d
\nIn contrast, AR days over 90 according to Martin indicates an increasing likelihood that money owed will never be collected. \u201cIt\u2019s 50\/50 after 90 days, and it gets worse every month after that.\u201d
\nShe credits her small, hard working staff for the Business Office\u2019s success. \u201cThey\u2019re all amazing, all very team oriented, and they work very well together. They\u2019re diligent about making sure they\u2019re doing their jobs to the best of their ability. Once again, it\u2019s not me\u2014it\u2019s them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eastern Plumas Health Care had reason to celebrate as they closed the books on the month of July. Their AR (accounts receivable) days were down to 51, which for a small hospital with a large influx of Medi-Cal Managed Care patients, is a significant achievement. Accounts receivable days measures the average amount of time from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}