The Multifaceted Impact of Administrative Burden and How Streamlining Billing Helps

What is the administrative burden in healthcare?

Administrative burden refers to documentation and reporting duties imposed on clinicians due to organizational policies that detract them from patient care. It’s relentless work of charting, third-party forms, and sick notes, managing an office, tracking down lab results, and following up on patient appointments.

The administrative burden can be characterized into these three categories:

1. Learning Costs – This is associated with learning about a policy and the process required to access the policy. For instance, some policies can be hard to find because they are only accessible through a government website that you need to know about. Or not knowing if you are eligible because of the number of requirements and relative ambiguity of the process.
2. Compliance Costs – This is associated with complying with a policy or application process, ranging from completing a long application form or having financial costs from an uncovered specialist for a medical assessment.
3. Psychological Costs – This is associated with the mental stress imposed on people through policy. For example, it can be retraumatizing for people to repeatedly explain their poor mental health. Or it could be negative experiences surrounding stigma and discrimination in accessing a program.

Due to the increased attention to value-based healthcare, data collection and reporting became central to providing quality initiatives. To a certain degree, administrative burden is warranted and to be expected. Yet, 75% of clinicians reported that their administrative workload impedes patient care.

The multifaceted impact of administration issues

Physicians often extend their working hours to finish administrative duties, negatively affecting work-life balance. According to the CMA’s National Physician Health Survey, nearly 60% of physicians attributed these issues to the worsening of their mental health.

For doctors, they don’t go to work to do paperwork. If they remain bogged down by administrative burden, they can experience the following issues:

• Increased medical errors
• Increased risk of malpractice
• Reduced patient satisfaction
• Reduced quality of care
• Poor patient outcomes

On the patient’s side, administrative burdens contribute to stress, poor satisfaction, and overall health. Here is what happens to patients when billing, health insurance claims, and patient records are weighed down by healthcare administration:

• Prior authorization delays: Patients find themselves visiting doctors or the emergency department more often, going through ineffective initial treatments, resulting in higher healthcare bills.
• Delayed care: According to a survey, 24.4% of patients experienced delayed care due to having to perform an administrative task. The patient’s time and energy are mostly consumed by figuring out which forms to fill out, which doctors their insurer will allow them to see, or what will and will not be covered.
• Adverse health outcomes: Patients experience negative physiological reactions to compliance burdens, like filling out complicated paperwork. With some blocked from accessing healthcare support, their psychological health is negatively impacted as well.

Underlooked strategy: Streamlining billing workflows

Indeed, healthcare administration remains to be a pervasive issue to both providers, patients, and practice success. It would seem like the administrative costs exceed the benefits from a “value-based” healthcare, but it’s not a lost cause yet.

Thankfully, you can integrate technology such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), telemedicine platforms, and digital health applications which revolutionize the streamlining of healthcare delivery.

In specific, through driving efficiency through streamlining billing workflows, you can accelerate claim submission, minimize errors and enhance staff productivity, leading to positive patient experience and gaining a competitive edge in the market.

Here are actionable steps you can take to reduce administrative burden:

• EHR and practice management systems integration is a must to automate and centralize all data that comes in your practice. From collecting patient data, billing information, and coding processes, you can reduce the manual work and minimize efforts that majorly contribute to administrative burden.
  Synapse Revenue Cycle Management is a well sought-after service provider of EHR that frees up time on your hands to do what matters most: patient care.
• You need to implement robust billing software that is tailored to your practice’s needs, including features such as claim creation, submission, and tracking, as well as follow-up on denied or delayed claims.
• Your front-end processes, such as patient registration, insurance verification, and co-pay collection need streamlining as well. Accurate and complete patient information at the initial point of contact with electronic patient registration and check-in systems is essential.

To demonstrate its real-world outcome, a multi-specialty practice struggled with inaccurate coding and billing which hurt their revenue, but thanks to Synapse’s efficient billing systems, they are able to achieve their highest collections and increase their collection ratio up to 47%.

Check out our Case Study: Synapse’s Accurate Billing Improved Client’s Collections by 18%

Empower your billing workflows and overcome administrative burden with Synapse

Stay ahead of the administrative curve while delivering exceptional value to your patients with Synapse. Our highly competent and trained team of billers and coders are HIPAA certified and compliance-oriented, ensuring we are always on top of the latest billing changes.

Leverage our system-agnostic solution for seamless integration with any platform and add this to our top-notch service packages:

• Eligibility Benefits Verification
• Pre-authorizations
• Virtual Front Desk
• Payment Posting
• Denied Claims Evaluation
• In-depth Accountability Reports and Double Verification of
• Insurance Claims
• Extensive Auditing Reports and Practice Analytics
• Coding to Streamline and Access Relevant Information

Contact us today to learn more by calling us at (844) 384-7532 or email us at medicalsales@synhs.com.

Source:

Administrative burden. (n.d.). Canadian Medical Association. https://www.cma.ca/our-focus/administrative-burden 

A profession under pressure: results from the CMA’s 2021 National Physician Health Survey. (n.d.). Canadian Medical Association. https://www.cma.ca/latest-stories/profession-under-pressure-results-cmas-2021-national-physician-health-survey 

Ask an Expert: What is Administrative Burden? (n.d.). UNSW Sites. https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2022/09/ask-an-expert–what-is-administrative-burden–#:~:text=What%20types%20of%20administrative%20burden,compliance%20costs%2C%20and%20psychological%20costs. 

Kyle, M. A., & Frakt, A. B. (2021). Patient administrative burden in the US health care system. Health services research, 56(5), 755–765. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.13861 

Sinsky, C., Colligan, L., Li, L., Prgomet, M., Reynolds, S., Goeders, L., Westbrook, J., Tutty, M., & Blike, G. (2016). Allocation of physician time in ambulatory practice: A time and motion study in 4 specialties. Annals of Internal Medicine, 165(11), 753. https://doi.org/10.7326/m16-0961