12/29/2025
We recently spoke with a multi-site physical therapy organization, and it was a useful reminder: annual re-verification is rarely a process problem. It is a capacity surge.
What surfaced in the conversation:
- Overtime becomes normal, not because teams are failing, but because it is the only way to protect patient access.
- Re-verification is a calendar collision. When benefit years reset on the same date, operational flexibility disappears.
- Manual work hides the true cost. Portal hopping, copy and paste eligibility checks, and note creation stay invisible until January overtime blows up the budget.
- Technology timelines do not match payer reality. APIs sound great in October. By December, you plan as if they will not be there.
- Staff fatigue is the real risk. 12 to 14 hour days, weekends, and holiday coverage add up fast, and burnout compounds every year.
What stood out most: this was not about “fixing” eligibility. The organization already had SOPs, templates, and strong institutional knowledge. The challenge was volume compression, thousands of checks in a fixed window, with no room for error.
For revenue cycle and patient access leaders heading into January:
✅ Do the labor math first. Volume and timing matter more than tooling.
✅ Prioritize by volume and risk, not by whichever work arrives loudest.
✅ Standardize what can be standardized, especially documentation steps.
✅ Protect your core team, rotate coverage, and set limits before the surge sets them for you.
Late December is about containment. Limit variability, focus on throughput, and safeguard the people doing the work.
Next cycle, plan earlier and staff it like a surge, because the window is fixed and the volume is not.
