Shore Health, part of the University of Maryland Health System, includes two hospitals and multiple remote diagnostic clinics. Each hospital in the system serves different populations. Tracking and maximizing revenue is increasingly important as hospitals face decreased reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, as well as additional write-offs due to increased unpaid patient balances. Management believes it’s important to have up-to-date technology and an adequately trained staff on how to ensure the organization is accurately reimbursed for provided patient services. Shore Health also provides onsite training and job shadowing as part of its education program. These activities train staff on the importance of the revenue cycle, where their specific work fits in, and how errors impact the financial success of the organization.
Shore Health began evolving its internal training to better fit staff needs. However, management realized there must be a faster, more cost-effective method to train staff than have management research, create slides and deliver the training. The managers realized they needed a comprehensive training program for their staff which covered patient registration, revenue cycle and billing topics.
Training needed to provide new and existing employees with a broad perspective of the hospital and key revenue cycle processes, yet also teach specific skills required in Patient Registration and Patient Accounting. Additionally, the new training program must be easy-to-use and install, available when needed by employees, and allow managers to track staff progress.
A Shore Health evaluation team selected SAP Litmos Courses’ Revenue Cycle training and included services in their training program. The program includes an extensive reference library, over 80 courses, with 55+ hours of learning, all grouped into 11 course bundles. Courses are accessed online and available 24/7, so staff can learn when it’s convenient for them.
Through this online Revenue Cycle training, onsite training, and job shadowing, Shore Health has drastically cut the time required to train new and existing staff on the revenue cycle, patient registration and billing concepts. In addition, high turnover in these areas has been cut in half. Employees now possess the tools to reduce errors and better understand how their job fits in with the overall revenue cycle of the hospital. This new and improved education program has saved Shore Health both time and money.
