Departmental Evaluations
Cindy G Day Founder/Managing Member
Healthcare Industry Expert | Creator of P.A.I.D: A 4 Step System To Increasing Your Revenue | Healthcare Organizations: Prioritize your claim denials to increase revenue now! Free training 👇
How long has it been since you evaluated your individual departments’ processes and their integration with the other departments within your company?
Not too long ago, I worked with a multi-million-dollar agency to evaluate the processes of their billing department. While reviewing the department’s functionality we realized that there were some weaknesses in how the billing department interacted with other departments within the agency.
Naturally, as we adjusted the workflow in the billing department, adjustments to some of the interdepartmental communications and data sharing had to be made as well. Once the project was completed, not only were the processes within the billing department improved but those of other departments through out the agency were also improved by creating better interfaces with the billing department.
How did we accomplish this? We focused on the following 3 elements.
3 elements for improving overall agency functionality:
1) Know which processes crossover multiple departments.
- Some processes are limited to 1 department, but others connect multiple departments within an agency together - be it by communicating changes that need to be made, sharing documents and/or data, or other interactions.
2) Review the process from each department’s side.
- You need to understand how the different departments are impacted by the process. What may work great for Department A may actually be causing issues for Department B.
3) Make sure the solution is efficient for each.
- If the changes implemented only improve the efficiency of 1 department, it is not truly a successful improvement. Be sure to test the process, and communicate the other departments needs as well, to ensure that in the end it flows smoothly.
Process improvement not only helps the company to function smoother, but it also helps to improve communication, and can help employees to feel better about what it is they've accomplished.
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