Strategies to Improve
Reducing days in accounts receivable is an essential element in medical billing and starts from the moment a patient calls to schedule an office visit.
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Phone: 1-800-670-2809
Accounts receivable (AR) management is an essential component of the services provided by medical billing and coding companies. In a medical practice, AR constitutes the sum of patients’ open accounts and the amounts due from insurance companies. The problem with AR is that the older bills become, the more difficult they are to collect. In fact, the financial success of a healthcare practice depends on having highly efficient AR and claims denial management processes in place. The following AR management strategies can improve a medical practice’s efficiency and bottom line: Gather all patient information when the patient schedules the office visit: Appointment scheduling is the initial point of contact between a patient and the practice. Collecting demographic information begins at patient scheduling and registration. All the information should be entered correctly in the provider’s billing system. Perform Medical Eligibility Verification: Prioritize insurance verification and check the patient’s insurance coverage well in advance of the office visit. Surveys have found that eligibility problems are one of the top reasons for claim rejections. Patients’ eligibility should be checked at each encounter. If this is not done it will result in a huge amount of work on the back end when trying to resolve open AR or open claims. Inform patients about their financial responsibility: With more and more people in high-deductible plans, patients have a greater healthcare payment responsibility. Therefore, providers should implement policies to inform patients about what they have to pay out-of-pocket and collect all copays and deductibles when the patient checks in. They need to work with patients who owe past due amounts and collect some of the balance at the visit. Automate the medical billing and claims management process: In addition to lower costs, electronic medical billing and claims processing improves efficiency, reduces errors and processing speed, and reduces risks of fraud. Medical billing companies work on advanced software systems to
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Phone: 1-800-670-2809
help practitioners to process claims accurately and quickly. They can provide solutions on the physician office software or their own. ďƒ˜ Focus on accurate coding: Improving documentation and coding is critical for accurate claim submission. With ICD-10 and CPT codes updated on an annual basis, physicians need to keep up with these changes. In July 2016, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) reported that the main coding challenges include errors in the application the seventh characters for trauma and fracture codes, mistaken use of procedure codes that drive a diagnostic related group, misidentifying respiratory failure, wrong use of guidance tools, and not documenting devices, components, and grafting materials adequately. Medical coding outsourcing is the best way to resolve such challenges. The starting point of AR management is medical billing analysis, a service offered free of cost by medical billing companies. Key billing metrics include average days in accounts receivable, percentage of A/R greater than 120 days, net collection rate, and denial rate. By working with practices to track these analytics, a reliable Medical Billing Service provider helps physicians drive performance and focus on improving care.
Outsource Strategies International 8596 E. 101st Street, Suite H Tulsa, OK 74133
www.outsourcestrategies.com
Phone: 1-800-670-2809