Running a private practice today requires more than providing quality patient care; it takes business savvy. And if you want to remain independent, you need to fix those financial practices that are sending your much-needed revenue down the drain. Missed opportunities for collecting patient payments and rectifying claims denials are sure to dry up your cash flow. The sooner you identify your problem areas, the sooner you’ll be able to find solutions and shore up your revenue cycle. Here are the top three culprits causing private practice revenue leaks.
Where are you leaking revenue?
Check your front office processes, claims denials, and debt management. Your practice may have a few small drips or worse, a potential tidal wave of lost revenue.
#1 Front office processes
Your front office isn’t just the face of your private practice-it’s a vital access point to your revenue cycle. Your front office processes may be leaking revenue if they fail to verify patient information, copays, and balances due at check-in. If you’re not checking patient insurance benefits and getting authorizations before providing services, not aware of balances due, or not giving your patients several convenient payment options, you’re sure to spring a financial leak.
#2 Claims denials
Accurate and timely claims management is essential to your private practice’s profitability. With the switch to ICD-10 this past year, rejected claims are going to be all too common this year. If your practice is still relying on paper lists and books of billing codes, you’re setting yourself up for a raft of claims denials. An electronic health record (EHR) system that doesn’t provide automatic claims scrubbing is a major source of revenue leak when claims are denied or rejected. The inefficiency of losing track of pending claims is another leak. Failure to properly manage rejected claims is expensive!
#3 Poor debt management
One of the quickest ways to improve your practice’s cash flow is to put a stop to slow, partial or missing payments-the financial drain known as bad debt. It’s your hard-earned dollars that could have been collected, but instead seeped out because of poor debt management. Practices that are relying on old-fashioned and expensive paper processes-sending out statements, collecting checks, generating credit card slips-are setting themselves up for a financial flood. Charge slips can make or break a private practice. Even so, most physician offices are still using the outdated system of paper charge slips. This is depleting your bottom line in several ways. Each lost or incomplete charge slip represents significant loss of revenue. Factor in the hours of staff time spent each day entering charge slips and tracking down missing information. If you don’t have the ability to enter charges for services rendered at the time of service, you’re setting yourself up for major dollar drain.
Learn how to plug these common practice management holes that are draining your bank account. Download the AdvancedMD guide, 3 Tips to Stop Revenue Leaks in Your Private Practice.
3 Tips to Stop Revenue Leaks in Your Private Practice
Today’s private practices have had to adjust to mounting challenges like ICD-10, Meaningful Use, and ACA. With so many changes disrupting practice management processes, it may seem as though your private practice is leaking revenue—and it probably is. Operational inefficiencies and redundancies are costing your office time and money.
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