A Prime Example of Their Work

In 2006, a not-for-profit, integrated health care system in the eastern United States purchased a 60-bed Community Hospital from another large hospital system. At the time of acquisition, the hospital was operating without a business office and the health care system and the acquiring company realized an interim business office solution was needed in order to successfully integrate the Community Hospital into the company's central business office.

ARx was referred to the acquiring company as an experienced resource to handle the full business office requirements of the Community Hospital until the system conversion was complete. ARx aided integrating the Community Hospital into the existing company by acting as a hands-on seamless extension of their current infrastructure within a span of two years. With the help of ARx, the Community Hospital successfully submitted bills within 5 days of the conversion, reduced A/R of $22 million by more than 96 percent with the remaining 4 percent in patient payment arrangements, and resolved all outstanding credit balances.

ARx picks up the claims and billing process after the patient visit and coding is done. Relationships with hospital clients range from a full business office outsourcing agreement to a partial engagement. For instance some institutions still prefer to do the initial billing.

"The hospital staff may get the bill out and do the initial followup and then turn it over to a third party like ARx after 20-30 days to work out the remaining issues," Glasgow said. "We prefer to do the billing so we can speed up the receivables process. But some hospitals like to hold on to that particular aspect of their operation and bring us in afterward."

He noted that generally hospitals focus on the front end -- patient intake -- and let ARx take care of the back end.

Barbara Kram contributed to this report.

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