what is revenue cycle management

Revenue cycle management (RCM) is the process used by healthcare systems to track the revenue from patients, from their initial appointment or encounter with the healthcare system to their final payment. The revenue cycle can be defined as "all administrative and clinical functions that contribute to the capture, management, and collection of patient service revenue". The process begins when a patient schedules an appointment and ends when the healthcare provider has accepted all payments. The revenue cycle includes all the administrative and clinical functions that contribute to the capture, management, and collection of patient service revenue. The revenue cycle can be viewed in three different phases: Order to Intake, Care to Claim, and Claim to Payment. The process consists of identifying, managing, and collecting patient service revenue. Proper revenue cycle management ensures that billing errors are reduced so that reimbursements from the insurance companies are maximized. Healthcare providers often purchase and deploy designated revenue cycle management systems to store and manage patients billing records. An effective RCM system can reduce the amount of time between providing a service and receiving payment by interacting with other health IT systems such as electronic health records. The revenue cycle management process concludes when the patient pays their final bill.