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Know how you can leverage your practice performance with 6 revenue cycle metrics

December 10, 2016 by Ango Mark Leave a Comment

6 revenue cycle metrics you must be tracking now from ango mark

Are you one of those busy physicians who pay just a cursory glance at monthly collections? Then you should be prepared to lose revenue every single day like this obgyn practice in southeast Georgia. It is essential for medical practices to track financial performance metrics, as every dollar that falls through the cracks can create an adverse and irredeemable impact.

Have you set the Medical billing department goals for 2017? Do you know the importance of medical billing benchmark in your organisation?

If you want to meet operational and financial goals and create a road map for your medical practice in a shifting landscape, start tracking these medical practice revenue KPIs.

1. The A.R. Aging Reports

Of course you know that claims are getting denied and your billing team is following up on them. But have you arranged your AR into buckets based on the number of days they’ve remained unpaid? Your largest claim summary should fall in the 30 days bucket or trying to convince payers to reimburse is going to be an uphill task. But how do you know if you are not keeping track of your unpaid claims?

A detailed aging AR report that breaks down key components such as number of claims denied, denial pattern, and payer specifics will enable you to handle backlogged revenue efficiently.

If your practice needs more information on aging A.R. divide the A.R. based on CPT codes and insurance. Here’s a sample report you can us form tracking A.R

A.R Aging Report

Pulling such reports will help you find out the billing performance metrics and hence help you know how your medical billing department performs.

2. Patient payments- The most challenging job for a practice!

The responsibility of the front desk staff gets even tough when the patients don’t listen or the staff doesn’t keep a track of patient collections.  To make the patient listen to what you need them to understand, it’s better to keep a track of the collections. It becomes a support for you if you have a report handy. Let’s say a dashboard that can help you keep a track of this indicator and thus prove your productivity.

Patient Payments

3. Productivity report of each physician

This is the age of ACOs. As medical practice converge under a single umbrella to better manage costs and operational bottlenecks, it is more important than ever to analyse the productivity of every physician on board. It will help you monitor fluctuations in physician productivity metrics and make physicians who are a part of your network more accountable. This adds to the list of practice financial performance metrics you should be tracking.

productivity report

4. Net monthly collections

You are meeting patients every day, but are you getting paid for each patient visit? Monthly net collections is calculated as (Payments – Credits) / (Charges – Contractual Adjustments). It reflects the amount of dollars you’ve collected and conversely the amount of potential revenue left on the table. A concise report will help you understand the practice financial performance metrics and areas that need to be improved on.

Net Monthly Collections

A weak and staggering revenue cycle will bring the financial growth of your medical practice to a grounding halt. There are several smart reporting applications available that can enable your practice to view and analyze pertinent information, anywhere, anytime. Invest in one and take the first step towards sustainable financial growth. This allows you to have an eye on your medical practice performance metrics.

5. Medical coding efficiency reports

ICD-10 has transformed the way healthcare organizations code. It demands greater accuracy and granularity of data. A detailed medical coding report will help increase coding throughput and spot the cracks in your medical coding process.

Tracking what your top paying CPT codes are will enable your organization to negotiate better performing contracts and increase revenue. This is one of the medical practice KPIs your billers must be using.

6. Track Payer reimbursement trends

Keeping track of the reimbursement rate of each payer is essential. Monitoring reimbursement metrics will enable medical practices reach financial goals. Getting to know how each payer reimburses your practice can help you design an effective financial plan and fix the leaks in your revenue cycle. Most practices miss out this indicator and the payer gets a chance to change its payment trends or even deny a claim without a valid reason. It is also important to monitor the reimbursement TAT of insurers

6. Track Payer reimbursement trends

The above dashboard displays the reimbursement TAT for last 12 months. You can select from the other two tabs (For 3 months and 6 months).This is also very important when considering to track the medical practice revenue KPIs

Filed Under: Medical Practice Tagged With: billing department goals, billing performance metrics, financial performance metrics, kpi for billing department, medical billing benchmark, medical practice performance metrics, metrics for medical practice, physician key performance indicators, Physician KPI metrics, physician practice metrics, physician practice operations metrics, physician productivity metrics, physician revenue performance metrics, revenue cycle metrics

8 ground-breaking mHealth apps for medical professionals!

April 21, 2015 by Ango Mark Leave a Comment

mhealth apps

mHealth apps have created a stir in the healthcare industry. Thy have enabled better communication between patients and physicians and have driven up a patient engagement to some extent. A study reveals that about 70% of people use mHealth apps.

Here are 8 mHealth applications that are getting a huge thumbs-up from the physician community.

A whole world of information…

epocrates

Explore prescriptions and safety information of, thousands of, generic, brand, and OTC drugs with Epocrates. This is a splendid mHealth app where you can check for harmful drugs and its interactions. Physicians can execute lots of calculations like BMI and GFR. It also helps physicians to key out pills by physical characteristics and imprint code.

Stay up to date!

uptodate

Physicians can rely on UpToDate app for drug topics and recommendations as it is connected with hospital execution and patient care. The UpToDate app comes with a persistent login, mobile-optimized medical calculators, and many other super-smart features.

Your peers love this…

doximity

An exclusive app that is designed for physicians, Doximity is used by 50% of the physicians in the US.  It is a medical professional networking app. This app facilitates HIPAA-secure communication, and updates about healthcare news, career management and much more! Physicians find this app very useful as they can receive and send HIPAA compliant faxes from their smartphones, tabs, laptops etc…

Read up on the vital info!

QXMD

A huge collection of personal articles by physicians is organized, and can be reviewed, with Read by QxMD. Physicians can browse any number of topics and share the articles via social networking platforms. Read by QxMD will provide you full-text PDFs and physicians can get access to institutional or open access publishers.

Stay on top of the ball…

NEJM

The New England Journal of medicine is specifically meant for physicians and medical professionals. This app contains the latest findings in the medical field. Medical professionals can view images of medical conditions from Clinical Medicine. NEJM This Week allows physicians to streams four procedure videos in clinical medicine.

Why Isabel?

unnamed

Isabel app is used by physicians around the world as it helps to search diagnosis of multiple signs and symptoms of more than 6,000 diseases. Physicians are allowed to check the availability of diagnosis through their web at www.isabelhealthcare.com. Isabel app is the best tool for physicians for the diagnosis process.

The go-to app of 150,000 healthcare professionals…

figure1

The Figure 1 – Medical Images are used by 150,000 health care professionals. It allows medical professionals to interact with other colleagues online. This app helps to improve the knowledge of medical professionals as they can discuss diagnosis and treatments. Physicians can easily get the clinical images of de-identified patient photos, x-rays, charts, MRIs and CAT scans.

Be in the know!

medscape

Medscape is a must have app for all medical professionals as physicians can visually identify drugs, OTCs, and supplements. This app provides answers for almost all clinical related questions. Medical professionals can find useful articles and Medscape also offers medical calculators, a rich collection of images, information on new drugs, and more. With the drug reference tool, physicians can find dosages and medications for evidence-based diseases.

Filed Under: Medical Practice, Medicare, physicians Tagged With: best health apps, list of health apps, mHealth apps, mhealth apps market, mhealth mobile apps, types of mhealth apps

Dismal patient collections? Make sure you aren’t making these 5 mistakes

April 1, 2015 by Ango Mark Leave a Comment


rxmoney

     Are you making these 5 common mistakes?

There can be nothing more discomforting than talking to patients about payment     responsibilities. Coverage cuts and high deductible healthcare plans make it imperative for healthcare organizations to focus on patient collections.

But do you feel queasy every time a patient collection issue crops up? Avoiding these 5  mistakes and training staff to steer clear of them, can boost your patient collections.

1. Giving the wrong signals!

Body-language matters. Smiling, while discussing about payments, can signal to your patients that you aren’t serious, or undermine the importance of paying the due amount. Frowning or speaking in a grave tone can put off patients. Maintain a neutral body language throughout. Familiarize yourself with contractual terms and coverage details before the discussion. Fumbling or giving the wrong information will further prolong the entire process.

2. Sending out overly complex patient statements…

You can bet your bottom dollar that most patients are not familiar with insurance terminology. So don’t send out a statement that can only be understood by a biller or insurance expert! Simple patient statements that don’t overwhelm patients work best. Don’t add aging buckets at the end of the statement. It can be an open invite for patients to procrastinate payment.

3. Let the patient speak!

Most medical offices make the mistake of dominating conversations with patients. Let the patient speak. More often than not the amount they agree to pay or the deadline they agree to clear bills will be much better than what medical practices expect! Encourage patients to come up with suggestions, payment options and payment schedules. This way, patients feel less browbeaten and more involved.

4. Not exploring newer methods for collecting payments…       

A lot many medical practices are implementing the “credit card on file” program. The details of the credit card are securely stored and the medical practice “swipes” the card to recover payments due, if and when required. Discover new, convenient and patient friendly payment options.

5. Missing out on upfront collections…

Failing to capture upfront collections complicates and delays the patient billing cycle. Ensure your front-desk staff, collect desk payments promptly. Call patients prior to an appointment to inform about their payment responsibility and what method of payment would suit them best. Have a swipe machine or request patients to pay online.

Provide a receipt, and if possible a note of thanks, upon receiving payment. This will induce patients to more promptly the next time around.

Filed Under: Medical Billing, Medical Practice, physicians Tagged With: Medical Billing, patient collections, patient payments

Are patients with high deductibles a threat to medical practices?

September 22, 2014 by Ango Mark Leave a Comment


It is time for medical practices to focus on patient collections!

Does high deductible mean low chances of getting paid?

Patient responsibilities have risen under the latest healthcare reforms. Coming forward, most patients would pay most of their healthcare bills by themselves. With payment responsibilities shifting to patients, managing patients with high deductibles is a risky proposition for medical practices.

High deductible insurance plans are the order of the day and physicians, who fail understand this emerging trend, will find themselves in an unenviable position. By the end of this year, an estimated 20 million patients will join the healthcare system and an alarming 80% of the newly insured patients, are at high risk for non-payment.

In a perfect world!

Higher out-of-pocket expenses are going to leave physicians with the unsavoury task of making patients pay their bills. In a fair world, patients would pay prior to treatment and coordinate with the doctor’s office regarding payment options. Patients would be well informed about insurance plans and guidelines.

But the healthcare world is anything but perfect. Everyday physicians face irate patients, lawsuits and threats to move to another provider.

Sounding harried over the phone?

The average time medical practice staff spend over the phone has increased and a call can last anywhere between 10 to 40 minutes. Blame it on complicated health plans and insurers who change payment regulations, constantly. Most private practices are understaffed and find it difficult to handle the deluge of patient calls.

Patient portals have been of tremendous help, but again, patients need constant support and education to access and use patient portals. Which leaves medical practices with one question- who does the tough job of receiving payment from patients?

Handling patient payment is a tough nut to crack!

Receiving patient payment isn’t just about sending sporadic statements, now and then. It requires close coordination with patients prior to a visit. Educating patients and helping them discover plans and payment options that best suit their needs, is essential. As is, following up with patients and sending out patient statements regularly.

And, always, ensuring, that patients don’t feel like, they are being cornered. Medical practices, now, rely mostly on collection agencies to handle their patient billing process. It avoids bad blood between patients and the medical practice. Trained professionals do a much better job and can free up in-house staff to focus on clinical activities.

Filed Under: Medical Practice Tagged With: Healthcare reforms, Medical Practice, patient billing, patient portals, patients, Physicians

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