4 Ways Hospitals Benefit From Improved Surgery Scheduling

Hospitals rely on elective surgeries as a source of up to 50% of all revenue, allowing them to take losses on a range of high-cost service lines to remain profitable. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the impact of reduced surgery volume, with hospitals suffering immediate revenue loss and negative profit margins.

As surgical service lines return to pre-pandemic volumes, it’s imperative for hospitals to have the right technology tools and best practices in place to maintain safe, accurate, and efficient surgery workflows. Not only does better efficiency lead to increased revenue; it also improves the experience for both healthcare professionals and patients by lowering risks, complications, and delays. 

Two tools, in particular, can play a pivotal role in streamlining the surgery scheduling process: Shared terminology and automated Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) coding. These tools may be overlooked, but successful implementation and use of shared terminology and automated coding can have several key downstream impacts before, during, and after an elective procedure.