If your practice’s cash flow is being affected by any reason, whether it’s due to recent regulatory enforcement or if you’re not getting the justifiable payments. It’s time to investigate the factors that are preventing you from achieving full cash flow and causing you to fall short of your profit goals. A practice’s cash flow is influenced by several factors that have a direct impact on the practice’s overall efficiency. The key to optimizing practice cash flow is to identify issues with your revenue cycle management processes. Some key areas to look into would be your top denials by payers and your patient collection process. A well-managed account receivable process is essential for a practice’s cash flow to remain stable.
Practices need to put in added effort and energy to enhance the collections. Here are a few suggestions to help you increase your overall practice cash flow.
1. Make A Collection Strategy And Educate Your Staff:
To maintain a steady practice cash flow, you’ll need a well-defined collection strategy. Make sure the employees are well-versed in the intricacies of the collection process. Create a policy and prepare the billing and finance departments to follow it to the full.
2. Explore The Reasons For Payment Denials to Increase Practice Cash Flow:
One of the main causes of the low collection is claim denials. Examine the reasons why reimbursement requests are being denied by insurance companies. If the problem is incorrect paperwork or inexperienced billing handlers, you can remove all of the variables that are triggering payment denials in the future.
3. No Show Reductions:
As much as delay in collecting an unpaid patient bill adds to the overall expenses, patients not showing up for their scheduled appointments amount to decrease in your net income. Find out ways to reduce no shows as it affects your overall practice performance plus no shows are a waste of time slot, room and the human resource. May be have three or four overbooking to fill in the timeslots if some or all systematic processes are not working out in no show reductions.
4. Integrate The Billing And EHR Software:
The overall status of the payments becomes transparent by integrating EHR with your billing and revenue cycle management system. During a patient’s visit, the front desk can check for any unpaid bills from the previous visit and inform the patient when they arrive. If your billing system is combined with your practice management system then you can get a clear picture of your unpaid bills.
5. Availability of Multiple Payment Plans and Options:
Allow your patient to pay for whatever method he or she prefers. This convenience would help you get the most out of your collections. Accept payments from your patients via credit card, check, or bank draft, or simply remind them to pay the overdue bills via the patient portal. Payment notifications, follow-ups, and the availability of various payment platforms are all the quickest ways to boost the patients’ total collections.
6. Don’t Dump Out The Old Claims:
Regardless of how old the claim is or whether you forgot to collect the balance or copay from the patient. You should keep track of any penny that was uncollected, even though it has been there for some time. Do keep track of your account receivable and keep on following up until the claims are fully paid.
The key to maintaining full collections is to provide a well-defined system for receiving payments from your patients and the payers. Practices can never meet their collection targets unless they have a transparent collection mechanism in place, which is possible by hiring a professional medical billing company.
BellMedex is a reputable medical billing services company that has proven track record of successful medical billing services with an all in one, completely free PM and EHR system. Check the testimonials videos of what BellMedex’s clients are saying about our top notch services. Contact us today for professional medical billing services and get a boost in your profit margins.
