Don’t want to see patient collections dying a slow death in your practice, and instead want the process to operate like a fine-tuned machine? Then you are in luck as practices are increasingly putting in place methods to collect all money due to them efficiently and on time, and you can follow their example.
Below we discuss the steps you need to implement to get your practice purring like a powerful race car when it comes to patient collections
Making your practice operate like a business that has to be profitable should be your overall aim, but there are several smaller steps that have to be completed to put this into action. One of the first should be assigning a person to handle patient collections and ensuring that they have the necessary training and skills set to get the job done. Importantly, the person will have to wear multiple hats ranging from interacting with customers in your practice to tackling insurance companies. Therefore, it is ideal that employees with years of experience in customer support and insurance terminologies handle this job as they will be able to confidently make decisions about payments compared to a fresh recruit.
Implementing a clear payment policy also extends to communicating it to patients in your practice. To facilitate the easier understanding of such a policy it should be in graphic format which can be quickly read by patients. Additionally the payment policy should be provided to patients in advance, so that they are well aware of crucial matters related to penalties for late payment, co-pay collections, coverage availability, and so on.
Offering several payment options such as direct debt, eCheck, cash, credit/debit cards and a popular online payment processor like PayPal allows patients to make co-pays with ease. With each payment option offered to patients, your staff needs to be trained to operate them efficiently.
Collecting payments for services is best done before patients step out of a practice. To ensure that this is done efficiently and accurately, staff should be trained to collect co-pays at check-in, verify the insurance benefits available to the patients, check deductibles and finally collect balance due at the time of check-out. In case accurate calculations of payment due cannot be made at check-out, the practice should opt to collect an estimated amount to avoid overbilling and then get credit card details for any balance that might have to be paid in the future.
Using software to manage patient documentation is one sure fire way to ensure that records are managed accurately, and are easily accessible when it comes to filing claims which leads to increased patient collections.
Making a watertight plan to increase patient collections within your practice is just the start of the process. You also have to make sure that you implement it effectively to capture out-of-pocket expenses that have been increasing at the rate of 30% per year. With this regard, OutsourceRCM can make a world of difference. Using a diverse array of resources starting from a highly experienced team of certified medical billing and coders to latest software and best practices, we can help you with setting-up efficient patient collections processes and ensure that no money is left on the table.