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How to Maximize Your Team to Produce Maximum Revenue
Can you teach an old dog new tricks?
In the case of your current staff learning new ways to maximize your revenue, the answer is definitely yes.
But contrary to what may be implied in the title, maximizing your team to maximize revenue does not mean having your team work to the bone. It’s not just about working hard, it’s more about working smart. When you know how the modern revenue cycle works and what you and your team need to focus on within this cycle, your team can effectively maximize your revenue without much difficulty.
A More Effective Perspective to RCM
RCM or revenue cycle management is the healthcare industry’s financial process that typically starts the moment a patient contacts a medical practice and ends when a patient is discharged and payment is made. But within this cycle is a myriad of opportunities, opportunities to not only ensure that the current revenue cycle comes full circle, but that new ones can be started.
UnderCoding in Healthcare: What You Can Do to Avoid This Pitfall
Is your practice constantly faced with the problem of under-coding?
Under-coding is defined as the process of medical coding wherein the codes used are not reflective of the full extent of treatment that the patient received. It is often the result of failing to abstract every code from the medical record or to select the highest specificity of codes. Like overcoding, it can lead to rejected or denied claims, not to mention decreased revenue. But under-coding can also lead to other, more serious problems, which is why it is crucial to avoid this mistake.
The Problem with Under-Coding
Despite resulting in lower revenues for practices, under-coding is still considered fraudulent and can lead to investigations or audits. Some coders think that under-coding is “playing it safe” when you’re unsure, but really it isn’t. It can be seen as inducement, or the practice of offering a free service to patients in order to encourage them to avail of a service that is covered by the insurance provider. This can lead to legal action on the grounds of fraud and abuse.
8 Reliable Ways to Reduce No-Shows and Cancellations
What’s worse than having a stubborn patient? For a practice, it’s having no patient at all.
No-shows and cancellations are the bane of medical practices. They leave you unable to meet your daily target, cause undue stress and chaos, kill minutes of your time and consequently, the profit you could have earned making those minutes useful. Research shows that practices typically lose an average of 1 to 2 patients a day due to no-shows and cancellations. This can add up to almost $100,000 in annual profits lost! Even if a single no-show a day seems negligible, it definitely won’t be that way in the long run and on your bottom line.
Thankfully there are a number of simple ways you can effectively decrease no-shows and cancellations in your practice, and get paid even when they happen:
1. Always set appointment reminders. Make it a requirement to set appointment reminders with patients the moment they set an appointment with you. Ask your patients whether they would prefer email, text message or phone reminders, and also at what times they would prefer to receive the reminder. In most cases, it’s most effective to set these reminders after hours, when patients are less preoccupied with daily tasks.
How to Deal with Patients with Insurance Payment Problems
It’s inevitable for practices to come across patients with insurance payment problems every now and again. These can range from patients simply being confused about why they have to co-pay or don’t understand their explanation of benefits statement; to irate patients who refuse to pay or withhold payment that was mistakenly sent to them by their insurance company. When these situations arise, it’s important for your staff to know how to handle them properly as their actions or inaction can affect how the entire practice will be viewed. They also directly affect how efficiently your practice will get paid and consequently, your bottom line.
So how should you deal with patients in these types of situations?
When Is the Best Time to Outsource Your Billing?
To outsource or not to outsource? That is the question that a lot of medical practitioners face when it comes to their billing. After doing billing in-house for years, some practices may find shifting to outsourced medical billing services as more of a risk, as it turns majority of the control on collections over to the billing services provider. But outsourcing can be extremely beneficial, if it is done within the right circumstances.
So when is the best time to outsource your billing service? Below are some of the scenarios where outsourcing has proven to be the better alternative:
Make Sure You Avoid These Common Errors when Filing a Claim
It’s a fact that a large part of a practice’s revenue comes from successfully processed claims. And it’s also a fact that even one small error in the processing of these claims can mean immediate rejection or denial, and the loss of revenue.
These facts are the reason why it is absolutely critical that claims be filed free of errors. In an office that handles numerous claims daily however, it can be difficult to keep track of every single detail in each claim. Knowing the most common errors committed when filing a claim can remedy this. By taking note of the most common errors or having a checklist of these nearby when filing, you can make sure to avoid most, if not all rejections or denials.
It’s a fact that a large part of a practice’s revenue comes from successfully processed claims. And it’s also a fact that even one small error in the processing of these claims can mean immediate rejection or denial, and the loss of revenue.
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