Increasing Revenue in a Rehabilitation Facility: Nurse Manager's Role

This report focuses on strategies for a nurse manager to increase revenue in a 100-bed rehabilitation facility. It emphasizes the importance of reducing readmission rates and promoting patient-centered care as key drivers for financial improvement. The report highlights that facilities with longer hospital stays face higher operational costs and suggests that focusing on continuum care can help reduce readmissions. It also discusses the negative impacts of readmissions on a facility's bottom line and the potential loss of government reimbursements. The report proposes adopting consumerism in the revenue cycle, improving staff training, and fostering collaboration among staff and stakeholders. The conclusion reiterates the importance of reducing readmission rates as an effective way to boost the facility's revenue and overall performance.

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Increase in Revenues as a Nurse Manager
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

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Increase in Revenues as a Nurse Manager
In today’s healthcare system, patients continue to retain financial responsibility in
delivering care, hence the necessity for the healthcare facility to consider innovative approaches
in improving its revenue cycle. Therefore, the 100-bed rehabilitation facility can best increase its
revenue by creating models that are aimed at reducing the readmission rates, while promoting the
provision of patient-centered care. According to Weil (2011), there is a general consensus that the
least competitive healthcare facilities are the ones that experience the longest average hospital
stay, as this increases the cost of operation due to high labor costs and the need to recapitalize for
equipment maintenance. The provision of high-quality and yet patient-centered care, in turn,
helps in shrinking the hospital stay, which in turn leads to the revenue increase.
Facilities that reframe their goals towards continuum care can focus on reducing the
readmission rates. Readmissions have a negative impact on a facility’s bottom line in different
ways such as high operating cost and scrutiny by patients and health insurers. Under the ACA
health system hospitals that record a high level of preventable readmissions are likely to lose a
part of their government, Medicare, and Medicaid reimbursements. Discharging all the available
resources towards the provision of patient-centered care helps in improving patients’ health
outcomes which have proven to be an effective intervention in countering high levels of
readmissions. The responsibility lays in the leadership and preventative care professionals who
will require proper training and management in ensuring that the readmission decreases
significantly (Weil, 2011). Staff collaboration is a necessity in improving patient outcomes and
reducing the readmission rate hence boosting the satisfaction of patients which equates to
competitiveness.

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The proposed approach entails adopting consumerism in the health facility’s revenue
cycle. There is a need to integrate a more consumer-friendly cycle that revolves around the
personalization of customer service to boost revenue gain. Patients continue to gain knowledge
about care and therefore, their expectations have increased with regard to the healthcare
experiences. Therefore, the facility should leverage the opportunity by providing training to the
current staff about their role in providing patient-centered care as desired by the patients to
enhance the competitiveness of the institution (Vermillion, Terry, Davis & Owens, 2010). High-
quality services that are free from error and efficient in nature will help in boosting the
performance of the staff, minimize medical errors, and improve patients’ outcomes.
In implementing the proposed change there is a need to engage the support staff, nurses,
medical providers, and clients as the main stakeholders. The engagement will be achieved by
holding regular meetings with the stakeholders to discuss the need for change and expected
outcomes of the proposed intervention. Additionally, the approach will help mobilize their
support for the project. Constant communication is vital in minimizing resistance which might
cause adverse effects on operations and the success of the project (Weil, 2011). The objective is
to mobilize the support of the entire team.
In conclusion, reducing the readmission rate is an effective way of increasing the
facility’s revenue. Readmission has severe impacts on revenue as it leads to the increased cost of
operation and also impacts the reputation of the organization negatively leading to inefficiency.
Hence, the facility should seek to use this approach to not only boost its performance but focus
on the provision of continuum care in general.

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References
Vermillion, K., Terry, A., Davis, S., & Owens, K. (2010). Innovations in performance
management: in one year, Baptist Health Care significantly reduced operating expenses,
improved revenue cycle processes, and increased revenue by aligning leaders' goals with
financial performance and engaging staff in steps toward improvement. Healthcare
Financial Management, 64(5), 98-105.
Weil, T. P. (2011). Privatization of hospitals: meeting divergent interests. Journal of health care
finance, 38(2), 1-11.