Time Studies for Medicare Organ Transplant Reimbursements

Conducting automated time studies for transplant and organ acquisition procedures could save your hospital system hours of time and lost reimbursement revenue.

A 2019 study by the American Transplant Congress concluded that “Medicare organ acquisition reimbursement through the Medicare Cost Report provides a significant revenue stream for transplant programs.”

Although transplants are consistently linked to being a substantial component of CMS reimbursement, it's quite common to overlook administrative and pre/post-transplant clerical hours that are eligible to maximize reimbursement revenue -- especially if these time studies are conducted manually.

Lost Revenue from Broken Time Study Programs.

Hospital systems are suffering preventable financial losses. In fact, a study of 11 transplant centers by the Department of Health and Human Services found issues with $47mm of $80mm costs audited concluding that hospitals currently had inadequate systems to claim organ acquisition costs, and highly recommended improved “time-and-effort reporting to identify pre-transplant, post-transplant, and non-transplant activities”.

The Transplant Physicians’ Crisis.

The need for transplants is growing, ranging from organs like kidneys to bone marrow, and yet the number of transplant physicians is dwindling. In large part, this is due to the increasing physician burnout caused by the difficulty and stress of transplant medicine. Physicians feel emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and are met with the additional duties of working with software and accounting for pre- and post-transplant procedures.

How Time Study Automation Helps.

Time Study automation enables accurate tracking, analysis, and insights into administrative and organ acquisition activities for the Medicare cost report. The automation can extend to accessibility via mobile app as well as easy integration into your hospital systems. Insights provided not only ensure administrative efforts are properly reimbursed to hospital systems like yours to help maximize Medicare transplant revenue streams, but also may be used by hospital systems to identify inefficiencies in the clinical and financial aspects of the transplant process. Furthermore, valuable time, money, and effort is saved for both administrators and physicians.

Why not try it out for yourself? Schedule a demo and see how your transplant reimbursement revenue can be transformed.

CASE STUDIES

With $10mm in reimbursement at stake, learn how a large health system increased participation rates and part A time working with Time Study:

WHITEPAPER

Learn about the top trends in reimbursement time studies including organ transplant pre-post tracking.