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Petersburg Medical Center to bring medical billing in-house, aims to reduce accounts-receivable days
Summary
Hospital leadership told trustees it will end outsourced billing and staff an in-house/best-practice hybrid to accelerate collections and reduce accounts-receivable days, with billing operations to begin in March.
Hospital administration reported to the board that Petersburg Medical Center will discontinue its outsourced billing contract and bring medical billing operations in-house, with a staged start in February and a target to cease the external contract by March 1.
Finance staff said the hospital gave notice to the billing vendor in December, has hired staff and begun training, and expects new in-house billers to begin processing claims in February and take full responsibility by March 1. Leadership described a blended model that uses remote billers with specialized expertise and local staff handling patient balances and long-term-care billing follow-up.
Hospital officials told trustees that existing payer contracts (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Moda, Aetna and others) are direct contracts between the hospital and insurers, so bringing billing in-house will not require re-negotiating those reimbursement contracts. Staff identified a minimal technical task to grant the in-house billing staff access to carrier portals (for example, the Medicare provider portal) and to Cerner and clearing-house connections; no new payer negotiations were required.
Administrators said the change aims to reduce accounts-receivable days and recover previously unpaid balances. The board was told the transition will include performance monitoring (login/activity dashboards and production metrics) and that the hospital expects to show improvements in AR within four to six months after the cutover.
Ending: Trustees supported the change and asked for updates on AR days and collections performance at future board meetings.
