Many medical practices are struggling to recover from the financial losses that resulted in 2020 and 2021 from the COVID-19 pandemic. While protecting their patients from the Medical Billing Solutions, medical practices suffered significant revenue and volume losses. Some practices had to close due to financial and clinical difficulties.

After the pandemic, revenue and volume are returning to normal. The pandemic has accelerated trends such as rising healthcare costs and increased healthcare consumption, which puts pressure on practices to increase their revenue cycles. Let’s take a closer look at three top tips that medical practices can use to improve their medical billing cycle and increase collection.

Medical Billing Solutions

Tip #1: Automate your Workflow

Practices and their revenue cycle are now ready for automation in a post-pandemic environment. As part of your medical billing solutions process, you may have staff members who do repetitive tasks such as creating patient statements, following up on claims status, and verifying eligibility. These repetitive tasks can be automated with various technologies, allowing your team members to concentrate on more difficult and valuable tasks.

One revenue cycle director stated that when there are thousands of claims in your practice management software, it can be difficult to determine which ones require more attention. Software can organize your claims and help you to quickly handle more urgent claims. Your expenses are a part of your net operating income. Also, you must monitor your labor, supply and purchased service costs.

Another clinic noted that their system had already automated patient financial clearance prior to the pandemic. The tool was still useful post-pandemic. The practice was able to automate this process, which allowed them to quickly clear patients days before their appointments, reduced the need to contact and eliminated the need of in-person check-ins.

Tip #2: Optimize your Front-End Processes

• It is possible to reduce back-end problems by optimizing your revenue cycle processes at the front end. The front end is where patients first interact with you when they visit your practice. This is a crucial point to make your patient experience extraordinary. One director of patient accessibility said that how you handle the front-end can have a significant impact on the rest of the visit.
• Your practice’s ability to verify the right patient demographics, enter insurance correctly and collect the financial responsibility of patients upfront will help reduce the amount of rework needed for the remainder of the revenue cycle. It also helps to reduce the risk of claims being denied.
• Healthcare organizations typically monitor AR in 30-day increments. 90 days is the best-practice benchmark for collectability. This number can be reduced to 15% if your patient mix is simpler.
• As accounts approach the 90-day mark, coordinate collection efforts. Also, remember that denials are a significant reason for aging AR. If the denials were caused by technical issues such as billing or coding, you will need to address those areas.
• Many practices still rely on manual patient access workflows. With technological advancements and personal smartphones, however, patients are becoming more computer-savvy. This allows practices to streamline the process by using features such as automated and bi-directional communications.
• It is possible to streamline processes such as patient registration. Patients and doctors can now register electronically using contactless technology. 

Tip #3 – Start a Good Partnership

Realistically, many practices have trouble managing their revenue cycle. Optimizing your medical billing and consulting solutions can be a difficult task for small medical practices. It is possible that you don’t have the resources, people or capital to invest in an end-to–end revenue cycle optimization project. This is often where it can be advantageous to form a partnership. Outsourcing revenue cycle management is a common solution to revenue cycle problems.

Look for companies with expertise in your field and familiarity with the systems you use to make a partnership work. You want a specialist and advocate to help you increase revenue and manage taxation so that you can focus on what’s most important – keeping your patients healthy.

M-Scribe.com is here to assist you with medical billing and coding, payer contract review, provider credentialing and account receivables services. We will work with your practice to make it more profitable. Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help your revenue cycle.