It can be overwhelming when accounts receivable (A/R) related issues fall squarely on your shoulders. Consider these scenarios to understand whether or not your practice has a weak medical billing collections process.
Scenario 1: Eddie visits your clinic regularly for teeth whitening services. However, apart from the consultation, he never pays in full for the whitening procedure—it takes too long to convert this credit sale into cash because of insufficient follow-ups and payment reminders from your team.
Scenario 2: A corporate business covers its employees under a healthcare scheme and your hospital is the healthcare partner. There is zero visibility with regards to billing information as treatment and procedures are fragmented among different departments. Your team fails to keep track of bills because of the lack of a centralized billing mechanism.
Scenario 3: Dustin, a patient, is caught off guard when the final bill is handed over following his treatment. There is no practice to communicate estimates prior to procedures being performed—this often leads to delayed payment or bad debts for your business.
Medical billing collections can impact your business’ profitability. Unfortunately, it remains a challenge to collect payments from payers and patients—blame it on the volume of documentation requirements.
Tips To Increase Medical Billing Collections
As a healthcare provider, you need to increase medical billing collections to sustain your practice. Here are some tips to help you:
Persistent Follow Ups
Let’s revisit the first scenario. In Eddie’s case, your billing team must proactively follow up with patients that don’t pay on time; inform them about different payment options (credit, cash and online) and payment plans (if available).
Ideally, inform your patients about the multiple payment modes available when they check-in—this will help increase chances of collections. Also, integrate a convenient online payment option that patients can access on-the-go.
Transparent Collection Process
Billing information is usually fragmented across different departments in corporates.
A billing software will not only help organize information, but also increase medical billing collections by tracing all unpaid bills. You can upload estimated procedure costs, automate late fee adjustments, and train your staff to set clear payment expectations while taking in patients.
The software can also be used to create standard operating procedures (SOPs) that can be used by your staff to collect payments—it will help establish a transparent medical billing collections process across departments and speed up cashflow.
Make payment and other important information available on your website. You can do it through Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) or appoint a dedicated support team to make this information available to your patients round the clock.
Manage Your Claims
According to the Medical Billing Advocates of America (MBAA), 80% of medical bills contain errors. A big reason why so many claims are denied. In case your processes are incapable of receiving and managing these denials quickly, you will lose out on the insurance payment.
That’s why you should encourage your billing team to work on reducing the number of claim denials. You can integrate patient information management systems in your processes. Your staff can access patient data at any time and ensure claim forms are filled in correctly.
Properly managing claim denials will help improve your medical billing collections.
Your billing team is the lifeline of your healthcare business. Make sure you invest in training them and provide them with the right tools to manage collections. Set metrics to map your collection efforts; read this detailed blog on KPIs that help boost your revenue cycle success.
No one can drive your practice’s collections better than you. However, let us help you with the right solutions to ease your collection efforts.
At HelioNext, we have been offering innovative revenue cycle management services to our clients for over 15 years. Our concierge medical billing solutions help you reduce costs to collect, manage claim denials, verify insurance eligibility and improve your bottom line. Get in touch and we’ll be happy to help tailor a solution to meet your needs.