A referral comes in on a Tuesday morning. A physician’s office faxes over a prescription for a power wheelchair. Someone on your team picks it up from the fax queue, keys the patient information into Brightree, calls the insurance company to verify benefits, chases the office for a Letter of Medical Necessity, checks whether prior authorization is required, and then waits. And waits.<\/p>\n
By Thursday, if everything goes smoothly, the order is qualified and ready to fulfill. That is 48 hours of calendar time on a workflow that, with the right automation in place, takes under 4 hours. And the 48-hour version is the good outcome, the one where the fax was legible, the insurance line picked up quickly, and the clinical office returned the call the same day.<\/p>\n
For most DME operations, patient intake is the single most labor-intensive step in the order lifecycle and the one most exposed to dropout risk. When intake takes 2\u20133 days, patients go elsewhere. Physicians stop referring. And your team spends more time chasing documentation than fulfilling equipment orders.<\/p>\n
The good news: intake automation is the highest-ROI automation investment available to DME operators right now because it addresses the problem at the very beginning of the revenue cycle before a claim is ever submitted, before a denial can occur, and before a delivery can be missed. Get intake right, and the rest of the workflow gets easier.<\/p>\n
This guide walks through the five-step automated intake workflow that DME operators are using to cut intake time by 60% or more: what each step does, what tools it requires, and what realistic outcomes look like.<\/p>\n
What this guide covers:<\/strong><\/p>\n Patient intake for DME is more complex than intake for most other healthcare equipment categories.<\/p>\n A standard referral triggers multiple parallel verification requirements before the order can be qualified:<\/p> Table of Contents<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/span>Why DME patient intake takes so long and why that’s a revenue problem<\/span><\/h2>\n