4 Medical Billing Tips to Maximize Patient Collections

Changes in the healthcare landscape have made it difficult for medical practices to manage financial issues and grow. Changes in healthcare industry also mean more paperwork which physicians and practices find hard to keep up with.

Medical billing is one area where many things can go wrong. However, you can reduce errors and claim what you deserve if you maintain high standards of patient care and revenue management.

Medical billing can be done in-house, or it can be outsourced to a trusted professional billing company with trained and experienced staff. If you have an in-house billing staff, here are 5 excellent medical billing tips to maximize your patient collections.

Clear Collections

The best way to ensure accurate collections is thorough documentation and present the information to your staff and patients. Each person in your staff should understand his or her responsibilities. So, all new hires should be trained appropriately on what is expected when it comes to collecting payments.

Another important thing is to define the available payment options right in the beginning to make sure that each patient is aware of their responsibilities and how they can pay. For example, if you accept cash or credit cards or checks or all of them. There shouldn’t be any surprises at the time of settlement.

Upfront Payments

The best time to ask patients to pay is when the patients come to your office. If they pay the same day they come in, you do not have to waste time and resources chasing them later.

Patients need to be reminded about their co-pay obligations too. If they know what their expected co-pay is, they would not need to ask you to submit the bill to insurance for processing instead of paying on the spot.

Patient Information

Train your staff to collect patient information as soon as possible. All information, such as name, address, phone number, identification etc., has to be collected accurately so that you there are no billing errors due to inaccurate or missing information later.

Patient information should be verified for returning patients. This will protect you from any unpleasant surprises later.

Technology

If you rely on modern technology solutions for health records, billing and patient collections, it improves billing accuracy and revenue.

An increasing number of patients, than ever before, are well-versed with doing transactions and other things online. Allowing your patients to access you through a patient portal will be convenient both for you and your patients, for example, easier access to bills, a faster digital solution for reimbursements and more.

If all this is too much for you and your staff to handle and you want to focus on patient care instead, it would be a good idea to outsource your medical billing and revenue management to a professional service who have trained staff and the latest technology to manage it efficiently.

To learn more about specialist medical billing services, such as family practice medical billing, call the best national medical billing company and medical practice consulting services, Medical Practice Management Resources at 951-757-2056 Today. A team of experienced professionals would perform a comprehensive audit and evaluation to what is working properly and where changes should be made to help make your practice more efficient.

To learn more about specialist medical billing services, such as drug and alcohol rehab center addiction treatment center billing services or chiropractor medical billing service, call Medical Practice Management Resources at 951-757-2056.