When it comes time to collect you need a reliable system in place for medical billing. Keeping track of past due bills and following up with patients is a virtually impossible task as your practice grows in size and scale. Use software to make your life easier and to increase efficiency around the office. Coding and billing pros know how difficult things can become unless you have a proven system for handling billing.
Let’s be realistic; a cash-starved practice is bound to fail quickly. Doctors can only do so much borrowing and leveraging before they need to operate at a regular, steady profit. Billing errors and delinquent clients both team up to hurt your cash flow.
Follow these medical billing tips to improve your cash flow and to keep your practice prospering.
Be Thorough at the Check In
This is the time when you need to run down patient information in detail. Getting the vitals helps you avoid medical billing errors in the future. Two musts are gathering a copy of the patient’s insurance card as well as getting their demographics. Coding and submitting a claim becomes easier if you have acquired this information before starting the coding process. Carefully verify all patient information to create a more seamless process. Make sure each patient supplies you with a form of government-issued identification when they arrive to the practice. After making copies of the ID stow it away in a filing cabinet.
Review Benefits
Review patient benefits with the payer to avoid any nightmarish scenarios down the road. For example, check for applicable co-payments, co-insurance responsibilities, and remaining deductibles to get clear on the patient’s benefits. Don’t leave anything to chance; be thorough with the buyer. Doing the legwork on the front end saves you time and headaches on the back end.
Don’t Be Rude
The worst way to resolve any claim problems is to use force. Nobody wants to work with a pushy, impatient, rude person. See yourself teaming up with the other party to solve the problem. Work with the payer to resolve the issue. Force negates and power attracts so do your best to tackle claim hang ups in a polite, thoughtful and kind manner. The end goal is to collect to benefit everybody involved. Keep that idea in mind if you find yourself becoming impatient or pushy. Take a deep breath. Focus on the most positive outcome. Patiently sift through discrepancies to make both parties happy and to resolve claims in the most direct, stress-free way possible.
Check Out Documentation
Review any documentation within a 3 day time frame to speed up the process. Check in with the doctor if you find any problems with the claim. Delaying only makes problems grow and perhaps multiply to be prompt and direct in reviewing documentation quickly.
Don’t forget to persistently follow up on accounts receivable. Do so on a daily basis to look over reports. Call payers for any claims over 60 days old.
Simplify the billing process and boost your collection rate with this practice management software.