The reimbursement process is often lengthy and riddled with the potential for lost revenue. Inaccurate filing, premature charge capture or inefficient claims denial management can be a thorn in your side as a billing manager or practice leader.
To counter these challenges, practicing streamlined revenue cycle management (RCM) strategies is essential. By implementing best practices across the revenue cycle—from initial scheduling to patient payment collection—you can boost your RCM and billing efficiency.
Instead of relying on manual processes, you can implement an RCM software that includes efficiency tools, engagement features and data-driven automation that helps streamline financial operations, increase profitability as well as simplify patient payment experiences. With interoperable billing and collections, you can use any other system with no custom interfaces, which allows you to enhance clinical efficiencies, optimize reporting as well as better engage with patients throughout their entire journey.
Maintaining Consistent Outreach To Patients
Consistent communication empowers patient loyalty as well as enables staff to send health alerts, automate engagement campaigns and even promote self-scheduling through the use of an online patient portal or kiosk. As patients become more involved with their healthcare experiences, clinical satisfaction rates will improve and your business will benefit from reduced staff overhead.
Click here to read more about the benefits of collaborative care.
Additionally, you can enhance communications by facilitating automated appointment reminders that let patients know about upcoming visits. Not only do these notifications help ensure patients get the care they need, but they also reduce no-shows, which cost practices an average of $200 in unused time. In fact, about 30% of missed appointments are due to patients simply forgetting them, so reaching out via automated text or email can help patients prioritize their visits and decrease your practice’s cancellations. These alerts can also prove helpful in coordinating follow-up visits or automating feedback surveys that improve positive patient outcomes.
Managing Claims and Accounts Receivable
Failing to provide insurance companies with accurate information is one of the most common mistakes that will trigger a denial, so it is essential to make sure claims include the correct patient data. To do this, you should train your staff to effectively employ tools like electronic insurance eligibility that help facilitate communication between providers and payors as well as consistently verify patient eligibility two to four days before their scheduled appointment.
Other solutions include batch claim filing or tracking as well as automated payment posting, so that you can decrease the amount of denials and most importantly, get paid faster!
Minimizing Denials With Automation
Since insurance companies want to maximize their revenue and will find every reason to deny submissions, it is important to file clean claims that are compliant with updated payor policies.
In order to minimize the percentage of denials as well as reduce claim errors, automatically pushing your charge capture from your EHR minimizes manual input mistakes, allowing for more accurate claims and higher reimbursements. With a high-quality RCM solution, you can easily separate claims that require attachments to ensure you provide all the necessary information to the payor.
Making Patient Payments Easier
According to recent research, 83% of healthcare consumers prefer eStatements and 86% prefer to make payments in one place. An interoperable EHR and medical billing software makes sending e-statements easy and allows patients to conveniently pay online, via any device. Payment plans are another great way to increase price transparency as well as offer patients a simpler, more secure and efficient option to personally manage their accounts.
You can also use interactive reporting filters that help sort through claim status codes quickly, manage exceptions, streamline denials and optimize patient collections. By tracking underpayments, you can compare the amounts approved with payor contracts, maximize the amounts you receive and accurately bill patients for any balance due.
Here at Raintree, we have strong roots in the healthcare billing industry, so we pride ourselves on staying up to date with the latest revenue cycle management tools that make it easy for your patients to pay you faster. With our interoperable software solutions, you gain comprehensive RCM and reporting capabilities that help you streamline complex billing tasks as well as stimulate profitability.
