More and more jurisdictions are requiring everyone to wear a face covering while out in public.¹ At the same time, it seems that acquiring a proper face-mask is proving to be roughly as challenging as acquiring Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket. Fortunately, the CDC has provided advice on how to fashion our own face coverings to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. We’re breaking it down for you in the simplest of terms. But first, please note:

• Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the cloth face covering without assistance.
• When removing the face covering, avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth, and wash hands immediately after.
• The CDC advises washing homemade masks daily (or with each use).
• The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. The CDC has asked that these be reserved for healthcare workers and medical first responders.

How to make your own face covering²

The CDC recommends tightly woven cotton, which includes quilting fabric, cotton sheets, and bandanas. However, if you have none of that available, a t-shirt can be substituted. In fact, the easiest way to make a face-covering involves nothing but a t-shirt and scissors. There are three steps, and it will take you under five minutes to complete:

• Measure 7 inches from the bottom hem of a t-shirt you no longer wear, and cut horizontally across the entire length of t-shirt.
  
  TIP: an average adult hand is just over 7 inches.
• Cut a rectangle out of one side of the 7-inch strip of fabric, leaving at least an inch of margin at the top and bottom.
  
  NOTE: this is how you create your ties.
• Cut through the loops of both ties.

Et voila, you have a face mask, which you can trim down to fit over your nose and mouth, if necessary.

The CDC offers two other methods, but one requires sewing, and the other requires rubber bands. As you can see, we’re perfectly fine with the no-sew, no-rubber-bands t-shirt version. For more useful information in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, check out the Exela Blog.

1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/16/coronavirus-face-masks-where-are-coverings-required/5144193002/
2. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html

Revenue Cycle Management for healthcare organizations has never been more important. Put simply, this process involves optimizing revenue integrity by reviewing every administrative and clinical function contributing to the collection of revenue and applying best practices to ensure maximum reimbursement for healthcare services in a timely manner.

The healthcare revenue cycle is complicated and intricate, with many factors that impact who pays, how much they pay, and how they pay. Patients may have no health insurance and are billed directly. Others have Medicaid or Medicare. Many are covered through a private insurance plan, often offered through their employer, which could involve any of the numerous US insurance companies - and in some cases multiple companies in collaboration. Mix that with the wide range of visit types and procedures, as well as coverage terms like deductibles, copays, and coinsurance, and you’ve got an environment ripe for errors and missed opportunities.

Clearly, in today’s complex and fluid healthcare industry revenue cycle management is about much more than just billing and collecting payments. Fortunately, with the help of digital solutions and third-party administrators who specialize in healthcare billing, healthcare providers are able to manage the complexity of these billing cycles, maintain reliable cash flow and deliver high-quality care to their patients.

The Goal of Revenue Integrity

According to the National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI), the goal of Revenue Integrity is “to prevent recurrence of issues that can cause revenue leakage and/or compliance risks through effective, efficient, replicable processes and internal controls across the continuum of patient care, supported by the appropriate documentation and the application of sound financial practices that are able to withstand audits at any point in time.” In other words, identify missed income for healthcare providers, determine the cause, and find ways to mitigate the issue in order to prevent it from happening with future payments.

Today, technology plays a crucial role in assisting providers, payers, and consumers in communicating efficiently, which breaks silos and improves durable revenue cycle management strategies. There are several critical areas that healthcare managers could focus on to ensure their medical facility optimizes its revenue cycle.

Reducing Claims Denials

As per the Healthcare Financial Management Association, claim denials cost an average of $5 million per year to each healthcare provider. Just reducing this amount could save a lot!

More than 20% of healthcare claims are routinely denied, with some providers experiencing up to a 40% denial rate. However, 90% of these denied claims could have been prevented.

Organizations can recover this loss by utilizing analytics that can provide a deeper view and help dig into patterns to understand the reasons behind denials. Such insights can help health systems implement prevention plans and procedures for recovering the denials.

A significant portion of revenue leakage comes from inaccuracies and errors that lead to denied claims. Unfortunately, the process of correcting and resubmitting these claims can also be costly and time-consuming. That’s why it’s critical for healthcare providers to take steps to prevent their claims from being denied. One proven strategy to reduce denied claims is partnering with a claims processing company like Exela. Our Global PCH solution substantially reduces the number of denials by correcting errors before the claims are even submitted, allowing healthcare companies to confidently submit “clean claims,” which are more likely to be accepted by insurance companies on the first pass.

By leveraging automation technology, streamlining communication between providers and payers, and reducing the number of resubmissions, PCH is able to significantly accelerate the revenue cycle time.

To learn more about Exela’s PCH solution, and for an in-depth look at Revenue Integrity, download this recent edition of Exela’s quarterly publication PluggedIN.

Fix Medical Coding Errors

Clinical documentation has a tangible impact on the revenue cycle. Unfortunately, there are cases where bills are unpaid due to documentation errors or medical coding. Managing these discharged-not-final-billed (DNFB) cases is essential for hospitals to improve revenue cycle performance.

Medical coding is a complex process requiring proper coding and proper documentation. Medical coders require compliance with government regulations and private payer policies as well as education in medical terminology, diseases, anatomy, and physiology. Documentation comes from the physician who needs to accurately detail the treatment and care provided so medical coders know which codes and modifiers to use. Any error could cost the provider.

Due to its complex nature, healthcare providers may choose to outsource their medical coding needs. LexiCode, our medical coding services, aids providers of all sizes, scaling to each organization’s needs with quality assurance and productivity monitoring. Partnering with LexiCode, providers experience timely medical coding resulting in steady cash flow.

Hone in on Revenue Integrity

A revenue integrity (RI) plan is an essential component of optimizing the revenue cycle. This includes accessing current workflows for inefficiencies, implementing improvements, and upgrading technology where it can help. Unfortunately, not all providers have the time and resources to create a proper RI plan.

Exela enables healthcare providers to attain revenue integrity through integrated solutions and proprietary technology that address the entire revenue and reimbursement lifecycle. Our Revenue Integrity solution helps identify and recover underpayments, maximize reimbursement from third-party payers, and provides a streamlined RI process.

Leveraging decades of experience with Exela and our cutting-edge technologies, we maximize reimbursements and dollars recovered, and reduce or eliminate related overhead, all while enhancing employee, provider, payer and patient satisfaction. To know more in detail, take a look at our PluggedIN focusing on Revenue Integrity.

Traditional brick and mortar retail businesses aren’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think about innovation. But that doesn’t mean that in-person retail hasn’t seen new and innovative solutions changing the way people shop.

One excellent example is buy online, pick up in store, or “BOPIS.” Sometimes referred to as “click and collect,” this is a solution that combines the best of both physical and digital shopping. Customers can browse inventory via a store’s website or mobile app, select the items they want, and complete the transaction completely digitally. Then, rather than wait for their items to be delivered, they go to the store, where their items are already waiting for them, bought and paid for. 

Smart locker solutions can even streamline the pickup process. Associates load the purchased items into a secure locker that the customer can then access on their own using their smartphone or a unique PIN number at their leisure.

The Growing Popularity of BOPIS

While BOPIS was originally developed as a way for physical stores to offer quick order turnaround time to compete with increasingly fast delivery services, the trend really caught on as a way to mitigate risks associated with COVID-19. According to one study, the number of people using BOPIS solutions grew from 127.4 million in 2019 to 143.8 million in 2020 - a growth rate of 12.9%. During this boom, shoppers transitioned a huge portion of their spending to BOPIS transactions, spending over $72.46B in 2020, a 106.9% increase over 2019. 

BOPIS Post-Pandemic

Pandemic-related fears drove accelerated adoption of many digitally-enabled solutions, BOPIS among them. As shoppers sought to avoid in-person interactions to slow the spread of COVID-19, many businesses turned to workarounds like contactless delivery and BOPIS to continue service. Now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted in much of the world, many are wondering whether these COVID-era solutions will continue.

Research shows that shoppers chose to use BOPIS beyond COVID-19 concerns. For example, one study from Raydiant found that 19.7% of BOPIS users cited the desire to avoid shipping fees. Other reasons included wanting to avoid interacting with people for non-health related reasons (11.8%) and cutting time spent browsing (9.9%) and waiting in line (8.6%). Rather than safety, shoppers will now turn to BOPIS for added convenience.

Business Benefits of BOPIS

Retailers have plenty of reasons to continue actively offering BOPIS options, too. Providing a faster, more convenient, and more flexible option for shoppers is an excellent way to differentiate from the competition. Some of the biggest benefits include:

Same-Day Order Fulfillment

The rise of eCommerce wasn’t just about the convenience of shopping from the comfort of your home - that had been possible through catalogs for decades already. The real key was the speed of service. With many eCommerce businesses offering delivery in as few as two days, the convenience of shopping from home reached a whole new level, and began to seriously compete with traditional retail.

BOPIS flips that script, allowing brick and mortar retailers to take advantage of their physical presence to offer faster order fulfillment than most online services can manage. While same-day delivery is an option, it typically comes with a high fee and is only available for a limited range of products. BOPIS enables same-day pickup free of charge for all in-stock items.

Reduced Last-Mile Shipping Costs

Getting packages from the fulfillment center to the end recipient may not seem like that big of a challenge, but this “last-mile” can actually be the most difficult and costly portion of the entire delivery process. Many brick and mortar businesses have turned to BOPIS as a way to mitigate last-mile delivery expenses while still providing competitive convenience to their customers. It’s much easier - and cheaper - to deliver items to one central pickup location than to hundreds of individual residential addresses. BOPIS allows retailers to offer their customers a way to receive their order the same day they placed it, without delivery fees or any risk of inconvenient drop-off time windows, lost items, or late deliveries.

Increased In-Store Foot Traffic

BOPIS also has another advantage over home delivery for retailers - it brings people to the store. This offers the opportunity to re-engage the customer at the pick-up point. Whether they spot in-store signage for a great deal they didn’t know about, are reminded of an additional item they needed and forgot to order, or simply are tempted by an impulse-buy display rack, in-person foot traffic offers ample opportunity to increase sales.

These secondary purchases are actually more common than one might assume. According to a study by PYMNTS, of the 9 million US shoppers who used BOPIS for a recent order, 47% ended up buying more items while picking up their order, and an additional 17% say they do so some of the time.

Flexible Fulfillment

For years, traditional brick and mortar stores sought ways to compete with burgeoning online retailers. Now that many physical stores have enhanced their online presence, solutions like BOPIS give them a key advantage over exclusively web-based retailers - flexibility. The addition of a BOPIS option enables shoppers to choose a shopping style that suits their needs and their schedules. They can browse the online store at lunch and pick up their items on the way home.

The use of on-site smart lockers like Exela’s Intelligent Lockers can also widen the pickup window even beyond store hours. Customers can place an order during normal store hours, which is then retrieved and placed in a secure locker by a store associate prior to closing. Then, using a unique PIN number or QR code, the customer can access their items at any time, even after the employees have gone home.

Conclusion

BOPIS may have largely grown from pandemic-related concerns about sanitation and person-to-person contact, but as these concerns dissipate, there are still plenty of reasons for retailers to continue offering this option. Shoppers appreciate convenience and flexibility BOPIS can provide, and the same-day fulfillment helps brick and mortar retailers better compete with their digital counterparts.

Solutions like Exela’s Intelligent Lockers allow for additional convenience and secure handoff of BOPIS orders, streamlining the pickup process while enabling greater flexibility. Learn more about how Intelligent Lockers can benefit your business.