Your patients matter most, but your clinic also needs a steady income for their best care.
Today, healthcare practices miss out on up to 30% of their earnings due to billing issues. This affects your income and your team’s too.
So, how can clinics get more from patient payments? When it comes to healthcare revenue management, Physicians Revenue cycle management companies understand these challenges and have tips to boost your cash flow and help your patients even more. Furthermore, in this blog post, we will read how healthcare providers can maximize the healthcare practice revenue and in the end, we will also understand how outsourcing can be helpful if the healthcare providers are looking to improve the overall healthcare practice revenue.
Tips To Maximise The Healthcare Practice Revenue
Following tips can be helpful and help healthcare providers boost their practice revenue
Clarity Of Terms
First, make sure your medical billing rules and terms are easy to understand. Everyone involved, like doctors, bill coders, insurance companies, and patients, needs to know their payment roles clearly.
Clear terms help avoid billing mistakes. Having consistent terms makes medical billing smoother.
Clear terms matter because many insured Americans find out later that their health plan covers less than they thought for their medical bills.
Patients often get surprised by how much they have to pay for healthcare. Your job as a provider is to make payment details super clear.
How can you get patients to pay their bills?
Here are some simple ways to make sure everyone knows what they need to do and pays on time:
- Tell patients what they owe when they start and remind them during visits. Let them know when they need to pay, at the office and after they leave.
- Ask patients to pay their part (like copays) before they leave your place.
- Always check if their insurance covers the visit. This helps avoid payment problems later.
- Tell patients about the different ways they can pay. Whether it’s cards, cash, checks, or payment plans, make sure they know their options.
Check Patient Details
Making sure you get paid right is simple: check patient info. Lots of money gets lost when info is wrong. Mistakes cause denials, but 90% of them can be stopped! Take this step to stop denials.
Ask patients to check:
- Name (spell it right, update for marriage)
- Home address
- Phone number
- Insurance info
First time? Get a photo ID. It helps if bills go to collections later.
Know how to contact patients best. Checking info saves you trouble, time, and cash.
Spend More Time On Staff Training
After setting up clear billing methods and double-checking patient details, your team needs to be on the same page. It’s vital they know how to handle claims and medical billing codes. Training them well and keeping everyone updated is key. Assign specific roles to avoid mistakes in billing.
When your staff is trained in medical coding, your claims will be cleaner. Normally, only 79-85% of claims pass on the first try. But aiming for at least 97% is better. With a fully trained team, hitting that 97% mark is more likely.
Having a well-trained team brings lots of benefits:
- Double-checked insurance policies
- Correctly filled-out insurance claims
- Accurate copayment calculations
- Consistent use of codes and terms
- Deep understanding of medical codes
Work On Denial Management And Ensure Clean Claims
Even with a good team and accurate info, claims can still get denied. Getting most claims right (at least 97%) is crucial, but denials happen. When denials occur, they mess with how money flows into your medical practice.
Denials stress your practice’s cash flow. When you face denials, it takes longer to get the money you’re owed. Stopping denials is better than dealing with them later. Experts say denials are going up lately, hitting 11% in 2020’s third quarter.
What’s causing more denials? The data says a lot are from the start, mainly in Registration/Eligibility. Three big reasons: sorting out benefits, hitting the coverage limit, and problems with the plan.
The plan? Stop denials in their tracks. But if they happen, here’s what to do:
- Chase denials with insurance right away.
- Sort out denials in 48 hours.
- Make lists of why claims got denied.
- Figure out which denials need arguing and which to accept.
- Use set phrases for different appeal letters.
- This helps keep your cash flow healthy when dealing with denials.
Adopt Automation To Streamline The process Where it is possible
When people do things by hand, mistakes can happen. They might type in wrong information or send it to the wrong spot.
If your team knows more and has learned new things, don’t burden them with jobs that machines can do. Make things faster and more accurate by using machines to handle parts of medical billing.
Where can we use technology to help with medical billing?
There are lots of chances to use technology in medical billing. Here are a few:
Getting Approval Ahead of Time
One good spot to use tech is before getting approval. About 11% of problems happen because of issues with this step. Doing this faster can cut down on these issues. We suggest using tech for approvals needing a medical check to quickly get approval for most requests if they meet the payer’s rules.
Checking If It’s Really Needed
With tech, we can check if something is really needed by pulling info straight from the health record. This helps avoid mistakes and saves time for your team.
Dealing with Disputes
When possible, using tech for disputes saves lots of time and can help with money flow. Making templates for similar disputes saves time. Going further, automating the whole dispute process using standard forms and templates is a big time saver.
Using data and tech avoids common mistakes in medical billing. Fewer mistakes mean better collection and more confidence in your practice’s income. Also, when reports are more accurate, coders can predict billing mistakes better.
Want to Boost Your Medical Practice’s Finances? Consider Partnering with a Billing Company!
Running a medical practice is tough. You’re focused on patient care, learning new things, and staying updated on healthcare rules. But handling billing is a big task too.
Outsourcing billing to any expert medical billing company can help. They know the process inside out, stopping problems like coding errors and unpaid claims. This can improve patient experiences and increase your cash flow.
