The industry I will be discussing is healthcare revenue cycle management, also known as RCM, and formerly known as medical billing. Information technology is used in the industry during all phases of the revenue cycle. The future has many good things in store for the RCM industry.
Before we look at the present and future of the industry, it is helpful to look at the way things were done in the past. In the past, RCM companies used to receive charts on paper from each hospital, along with a log of all patients seen. The paper charts were given to the medical coders, and the coders coded the charts on paper. The paper charts were then entered manually by a data entry staff for billing. The log was checked to verify that data was received for all patients seen. Payments would come in, and each one would be analyzed and processed manually. At the end of the process, the paper charts were scanned in for historical purposes. In this setting, personnel with little computer expertise were needed for things such as mail room processing and scanning.
