Illinois Hospitals use R&B Solutions’ RAMP to meet new Illinois Medicaid Law requirements
Waukegan, IL – On January 25, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed major reforms to Medicaid into Illinois law. According to Quinn, this "landmark achievement" aims to reduce costs, pay bills sooner, and target fraud to assist the State in reducing a deficit projected to hit $15 billion in the coming year.
Subject to Federal approval, the law enhances current mandates for Medicaid by requiring applicants to provide additional evidence that they meet the income and Illinois-residency requirements. Instead of a single paystub, the new law requires a month’s worth of income information for verification, and regulates annual redetermination of eligibility, thereby decreasing the overall impact the program has on the budget. These new laws present a challenge to uninsured patients and those assisting them in applying for Medicaid.
R&B Solutions, a Medicaid Advocacy company based out of Waukegan, Illinois, already has a system in place to assist hospitals and patients with these changes. Their web-based and stand-alone software RAMP (Rapid Application for Medical Programs) is a solution designed to automate the screening and form completion process for Medicaid, Crime Victims Assistance, Section 1011 and other financial assistance programs. RAMP has instant access to electronic pay-stubs and goes beyond the new State requirement of one month by having up to three months of paystub information available.
In September 2010, R&B Solutions announced the integration of precise employment and income verification, and income tax information into RAMP. Until this integration, hospitals often had to rely on the patient and/or their employer to provide income verification through a manual process to complete their application. The integration gives users a truly automated screening tool, helping to increase efficiencies and productivity, and decrease application time, which yields greater reimbursement. R&B Solutions and providers use RAMP to assist in screening uninsured patients, and can help patients identify programs that can aid them with their medical expenses. Consequently, hospitals resolve more accounts and patients can gain enough peace of mind to concentrate on healing.
R&B Solutions believes more hospitals will embrace this product offering as a way to automate the Medicaid application process, and easily assist their patients in acquiring the necessary verification information now required by the state.
Kara Jo Carson, CFO for Pinckneyville Community Hospital in Illinois, said “R&B Solutions’ RAMP program has been a cost effective way for our hospital to automate applications. Patients are less inhibited by the process and we have been able to reclassify more of our write-offs from uncollectible bad debt to charity. The new IRS tax return service is also very beneficial to provide adequate supporting documentation, which will be a requirement with the new legislation.”
The governor’s office estimates the changes will save between $624 million to $774 million over five years. The program's annual budget is $7.6 billion, about one-third of the state's general revenue fund budget. In Illinois, Medicaid is administered by the Department of Healthcare and Family Services and includes about 2.8 million people.
Ryan Brebner
R&B Solutions
Phone: (847) 884-8514
E-Mail: rbrebner@randbsolutions.net
About R&B Solutions: (www.randbsolutions.net)
R&B Solutions is a leading Medicaid Advocacy corporation that both uninsured patients and medical providers alike have come to trust to solve many of the problems facing uninsured patients and the medical facilities from which they seek help. R&B Solutions offers a wide variety of solutions for medical providers to assist their patients. The company uses highly-trained patient advocates efficient in State Human Services processes, internally developed software, and years of legal experience to identify and assist the uninsured. R&B Solutions offers expertise in the field of Medicaid Advocacy (inpatient solution), Solutions for Uninsured Patients (SUP), outpatient solutions, and RAMP (Rapid Application for Medical Programs) proprietary software that screens for Medicaid and charity eligibility. Founded in 1986, R&B assists health care providers and their uninsured patients across the United States.
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