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Effective Medical Revenue Cycle Managements

Author: William Tyler
by William Tyler
Posted: Aug 12, 2016

Your healthcare revenue cycle management is the most important part of your practice. This is because unless you get paid for the services provided, you will not stay at your practice for very long. All too often, those in the health care industry fail to make their medical revenue cycle management as efficient as it can be. This is why making it a top priority of you and your staff is so vital to staying in business.

The good news is that there are simple, effective steps you can take to make your revenue cycle management process as efficient as possible.

Gather Important Data

An easy method is to stay on the phone when patients call for an appointment to verify their insurance information. By doing so over the phone, you can avoid the inefficient practice of having them show up and wait on the day of their appointment in order to get the right information. By taking that extra step, you can save a considerable number of time-wasting mistakes.

If you discover that the patient does not have insurance or their information is outdated, you have time to call the patient back before they show up for their appointment so that everything is straightened out.

How Eligibility Verification Works

Basically, your goal is to reduce the number of what is known as "first-pass" denials to 5% or less. Even the best verification efforts will still have some patients slip through. So, your goal is to look over the total number of first-pass denials and compare them to the total number of patients that you saw who had insurance over the past three months. That will give you a proper starting average so you can employ new techniques to bring that number down.

When you consider that the average first-time denial costs roughly $25 per claim, you can see how important it is to keep that number as low as possible.

Automate the Process

By automating the process as much as you can with electronic remittance payments and electronic claims submissions, you reduce the potential errors even further. It also saves a considerable amount of time which can be used to follow up on other claims or balances. Additionally, offering online billing and e-statements further reduce the time needed to get payments.

Recheck Codes

Using the correct codes and information for billing purposes is a vital step towards eliminating mistakes. It’s very important to use the proper ICD diagnosis and CPT Service codes for each patient. You’ll want the charge slips to be processed as soon as possible and not hold them because that might garner more errors.

Most practices use a missing charge report process that helps track any charges that might get away for the day. If your practice does not use one, check to see if it will work better for you. Remember that your practice will need to follow the proper steps in order to improve the medical revenue cycle management;

  • Collect Information
  • Check Eligibility Verification
  • Recheck Codes
  • Automate as Much of the Process as Possible

Doing all four will help improve your healthcare revenue cycle considerably so you can maximize your revenues.

Crystalvoxx.com - End-to- end Medical Revenue Cycle Management services helping hospitals and healthcare organizations improve their revenue cycle operations.

About the Author

CrystalVoxx.com - Expedite your reimbursement process with our highly trained Medical Billing Experts.We manage everything from Insurance Proof to AR Follow-up services.

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Author: William Tyler

William Tyler

Member since: Jul 12, 2016
Published articles: 21

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