Monthly department check-ups for a healthy practice, part 2 — more billing tips

In my last blog, I discussed the benefits of streamlining administrative tasks by monitoring key benchmarks on a regular basis. An internal comparison to your own practice, quarter to quarter, is the most important, as you track your own progress over longer time frames.

Before I move on to clinic and patient services benchmarks, here are a few additional ways to help you more deeply analyze the productivity and skill of your billing department:

1. Audit the time component it takes for each billing task to be accomplished. Time lags in any of the following areas will result in delayed and decreased revenues:

Between date of service and posting of associated charges. Recommended schedule is no longer than 48 hours, best being within 24 hours.
Posting of charges and electronic transmission to the insurance company. Electronic transmission should be done daily. This keeps cash flow consistent and assures timely filing.
Receipt of payment and posting of the payment. The quicker this task is accomplished, the faster the secondary insurer or patient will be billed and subsequently the A/R reduced. A posting time within 24 hours is the goal. Electronic auto-posting of payments is a real value and great way to accomplish this.
A/R follow-up in general, and specifically once it becomes the patient’s responsibility. If this piece of the billing process is not working consistently, you will experience decreased reimbursements. The more time that passes from the date of service to the time the patient is billed, the harder it is to collect payment. And once you turn it over to a collection agency, you are only receiving a fraction, if that, of the original charges.

2. Review your preauthorization efficiency rate. (Some practices have this responsibility in the billing department and some in patient services, where the appointments are scheduled.) Spot check to see if the check-in process at the front desk is smooth or if the patients are held up on the front end due to poor insurance verification. There are numerous online options for insurance verification that make it easy, as long as the correct information is collected from the patient.

3. Assess your collection rate occurring at the time of service. Work with the patient services department if they staff the check-out desk to be sure the collection policies and procedures are written, understood, audited and enforced. The best practice is to collect co-pays, deductibles and refraction fees on the date of service.

Corinne Z. Wohl, MHSA, COE, is the administrator at Delaware Ophthalmology Consultants and can be reached at 609-410-2932; email: czwohl@gmail.com.