3. Consolidate accounts.
Consolidating accounts offers several benefits beyond earning interest and potentially repaying debt. Consolidation also simplifies cash tracking, so staff can spend less time transferring money between accounts.
Consolidation doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. While some credit facilities may require maintaining deposits with certain banks and meeting minimum balance requirements, it makes sound financial sense to consolidate where possible.
4. Scrutinize receivables.
Healthcare receivables are complex. Exploring this aspect of cash flow can offer opportunities for improvement. While outsourcing continues to be trending, hospitals should maintain a firm grasp on revenue cycle management. Selecting the right revenue cycle platform and diligently managing their performance is vital—the amount and timing of collections significantly impacts liquidity.
A medical data lockbox outsources manual processes and leverages technology to enhance the cash-posting and reconciliation processes, allowing finance staff to focus on more value-added tasks. Other technology solutions to streamline and enhance receivables include remote deposit capture, cash vault, merchant services, ACH, and integrated receivables.
5. Drill into payables.
Many healthcare providers continue to rely heavily on checks when making payments. While familiar, checks come with higher fraud risks and costs relative to electronic payment options. In fact, checks are the number one source of payment fraud.Disclosure 1 To reduce risk and lower costs, consider integrating electronic payment methods.
In addition to the fraud benefit, electronic payment options provide more control over payment timing. These options include commercial credit cards, virtual payment cards, ACH, integrated payables and Real Time Payments (RTP®).
