Taking few and simple actions can effectively increase your practice’s revenue:
- Verify patient eligibility before 100% of visits: Eligibility checklist can help ensure an established patient has the same coverage as the previous visit by validating the Policy ID, effective/termination date, deductibles, etc.
- Pre-visit reminder: Reminding calls before the patient’s appointment reduces no shows and also offer an opportunity to allow the patient to be prepared for payment of copayment or any other balance due (if any).
- Update Patient information: At patient’s check-in, the contact information on file must be confirmed and updated (phone numbers, address, and email). Missing the opportunity to retrieve the last updated information can lead to revenue loss due to invalid information on file.
- Copay and patient balance paid before the visit: Any balance due must be collected while the patient is at the office. The postponing process results in an increase of operational cost and a decrease of revenue.
- Review of claims before submission: Simple mistakes can easily be fixed before claim submission (incomplete patient or plan information, missing supplemental attachments, incomplete service information, duplicate claims, claims submitted to the wrong payor and coding errors). Clean claims result on fast payment and lowered operational cost since there will be no need for claim re-work.
- Periodically examine contracts with major payers. It happens fairly often that providers do not get paid according to the contract. Whether your payment is suffering because you billed the payer incorrectly or the payer made a mistake, you should review both situations to find out where the problem lies.
- Signing up for electronic remittances(ERA) and payments (EFT). Receiving ERAs allow you to work on your denied claims 2 to 4 weeks faster than paper EOBs, while EFTs give you access to your cash 2 to 4 weeks faster than paper checks, and it also mitigates the possibility of embezzlement in your office Note: Payers are not aggressive about offering EFTs, so you may have to request the service.
