Q&A: Collaborating with other departments on chargemaster approvals

Q: How do you work with other departments when approving requests for changes to the chargemaster?
Tracy Cahoon, MBA, CHRI, director of revenue integrity at Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights, Ohio: We have a SharePoint site for departments to request items, but most of the time they send emails to either [the revenue integrity supervisor] or myself. Then [we have
to go] into the SharePoint site so we can try to track it. I’m in the process now of implementing Craneware and their new chargemaster maintenance workflow, so I’m hopeful that in the future we will have a more streamlined request process.
Maureen Sloane, RHIT, COC, chargemaster manager at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia: We started originally with a team approach but the requests would be hung up by so many people that it just wasn’t working. [Now] we discuss it with the department and then the revenue integrity team does everything else.

Editor’s note: This article was excerpted from the 2023 State of the Revenue Integrity Industry Survey Report. Read the full report here.