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BLOG: Tightening revenue cycle management, part 1
As an administrator or practice owner, do you sometimes feel you’re getting the runaround from your patient accounts management staff?
Or perhaps you’re an associate surgeon in a practice, and you’re paid a percent of your financial productivity. How confident are you that everything possible is being done by staff to collect for all the hard work you’ve done?
As the manager of the billing department, do you find it hard to communicate with your administrator or doctors about the status of your department’s progress?
Well, this next blog series is for you.
Too often, when doctors and managers gather and discuss the state of the billing department, the conversation goes like this:
Dr. Witherholt: “So how are we doing on collections, Susan?”
Susan: “Just great doctor! My staff are working hard, and I’ve cancelled vacations until we can bring the receivables down just a little bit. The new computer system is still a pain, but the vendor is finally returning my calls. And did you hear that TruCare is finally paying us after all those re-submissions? Thanks, by the way, for getting better at signing off your superbills.”
What’s missing in all this happy chatter? The numbers! Talk is cheap because the supply exceeds the demand. If Susan’s description of her department’s progress moves beyond the subjective to the numeric facts, two important things start to happen.
First, Susan becomes more accountable for the performance of her team. It’s all too easy, even for competent managers, to develop poor habits if they are not challenged by the owners to deliver the details. It may be uncomfortable the first few times to confess to any negative collection trends. But exposing the problems precisely — and that means numerically — is the start of marshalling the resources you need for a solution.
Second, the managing doctor rapidly becomes a better owner of the practice, more willing to loosen the purse strings when billing managers ask for more staff time, training and computing power. With reliable numbers, owners know the results of these expensive, additional resources are going to be measurable.
Check in for the next installment, when you’ll hear how the conversation is supposed to go.
John B. Pinto is president of J. Pinto & Associates Inc., an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm established in 1979. John is the country’s most-published author on ophthalmology management topics. He is the author of John Pinto’s Little Green Book of Ophthalmology, Turnaround: 21 Weeks to Ophthalmic Practice Survival and Permanent Improvement, Cashflow: The Practical Art of Earning More From Your Ophthalmology Practice, The Efficient Ophthalmologist, The Women of Ophthalmology, Legal Issues in Ophthalmology and a new book, Ophthalmic Leadership: A Practical Guide for Physicians, Administrators and Teams. He can be reached at email: pintoinc@aol.com; website: www.pintoinc.com.