Increasing profitability by minimizing hidden costs in hospital inpatient revenue cycle using socio-economic approach to management (SEAM)

Abstract

Healthcare is a growing sector with an increasing demand for more efficiency in performance and better quality of services. Sustainable performance is vital with an increasing market competition, elevating patients expectations, progressive reinforcing of insurance bodies terms on hospitals under managed care policies, and wide spreading of accreditation standards. This creates a real challenge for policy makers and healthcare managers that are governing hospitals though management methodologies and tools with questionable effectiveness. This paper studies the impact of a holistic approach to identify and analyze critical drivers for better performance and productivity in revenue cycle of hospitals in Reception-Admission-Billing (RAB) department using the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM). SEAM is a people-centered systematic organizational development methodology that "can be considered as a machine for negotiating innovative solution, with the underlying goal of reducing the dysfunctions experienced by the enterprise" (Savall, 2007). SEAM factors both peoples perceptions and financial data into analysis.