VA region looks for analytics to bolster revenue

A Veterans Affairs region that covers much of California wants help analyzing its processes and data collection in an effort to boost its third-party revenue and other funding.

The Veterans Affairs Department's region that covers a large chunk of California as well as Nevada, Hawaii and several outside the U.S. is looking for help analyzing its revenue cycle.

The VISN 21 region includes northern and central California, Nevada, Hawaii, the Philippines, and U.S. territories in the Pacific Basin. It has 67 sites that include seven VA medical centers, nine co-located community living centers and 41 community-based outpatient clinics.

VISN 21 wants to maximize third party revenue as well as its Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation funds. To do that, it needs better data and a better understanding of its processes.

According to a new sources sought notice, VISN 21 wants to analyze billing and workload data and how that information is collected and processed.

The analysis will include reviews of revenue cycle processes and education for clinical and medical record personnel. The goal is to improve documentation and coding.

Focus areas for review include radiology, surgery, oncology, ambulatory care, pathology, cardiology, radiation therapy, ophthalmology, chemotherapy, pulmonology, dialysis, prosthetics, pain management and other areas.

A selected contractor will evaluate if all facility billable services have been identified, coded, billed and collected. The workflow analysis will review clinic setups, stop code assignments, and workload capture for billing and VERA funding.

The project is slated to run from September 2019 to August 2020.

Responses to the request for information are due June 12.