Configuring your medical practice for efficiency and financial success in 2023
You can’t build a house without a solid foundation. Similarly, you can’t promote operational efficiency and revenue integrity without taking certain foundational steps to improve your medical practice. As you strive to achieve certain goals in 2023, these steps can help you get there. Consider the following:
1. Use direct deposit electronic funds transfer (EFT). For example, with Medicare EFT, Medicare can send payments directly to your financial institution regardless of whether you file claims electronically or on paper. Other payers may offer EFT as well. Why use EFT? There are many reasons: Reduce the amount of paper in your medical practice, save time and resources by not having to physically go to the bank to deposit checks, enjoy faster access to funds, and reconcile payments more easily.
2. Monitor electronic remittance advice (ERA). ERA is a data file that you receive from an insurance payer that provides you with payment information about a claim you submitted to it. For example, it includes information about contractual adjustments as well as adjustments based on secondary health plans, patient benefit coverage, expected copays and coinsurance, capitation payments, and more. It’s important to monitor ERA transactions because they can help you link an EFT with specific covered services and help you easily track transactions and improve the medical billing process.
3. Leverage your clearinghouse. Clearinghouses play an important role in a medical practice’s financial success by checking each medical claim for errors. Once the claim passes inspection, a clearinghouse sends it securely to payers for processing. There are many reasons why it’s important to leverage a clearinghouse when performing medical billing. Consider the following:
It avoids potential hidden costs associated with purchasing additional software components.
It enables medical practices to submit claims in one big batch rather than separately, yielding fewer errors and the need to manually re-key transaction data on each payer’s website.
It helps medical practices catch and fix claim errors on the front end, resulting in fewer denied claims and follow up.
It mitigates confusion associated with logging into multiple accounts, remembering multiple transmission methods, memorizing carrier-specific error codes, and more which helps reduce employee burnout and improve satisfaction.
It prevents staff from having to wait on hold with Medicare and other payers inquiring about claim errors, enabling them to focus more directly on patients.
It speeds up claims processing, leading to improved cash flow and more accurate revenue forecasts.
4. Send electronic patient statements. There are many reasons why electronic statements via email and text message are good for business. First, they reduce paper and postage costs. Second, they save time. Patients can review and respond to an electronic statement within seconds. Paper statements, on the other hand, may take days to arrive. Or they could get lost in transit or delivered to the wrong address. With electronic statements, medical practices never need to worry. E-statements are only accessible to the patient, and they’re protected by the patient’s login credentials. Secure, fast delivery spells smoother cash flow for your medical practice.
5. Improve your practice management system. Now is the time to explore your options to see whether something better is available. Ask yourself this question: Does your current practice management system help you dig deeper to analyze cost and profitability by profit centers? Monitor contract under- and over-payments? Investigate new revenue opportunities? You owe it to yourself and your business to invest in technology that propels you forward and helps you meet your goals.
Conclusion
The five strategies discussed in this article can help medical practices improve efficiency and revenue integrity in 2023 and beyond. The strategies represent foundational capabilities that enable physicians and their staff to focus less on the revenue side of healthcare and more on patient care. Even if you only focus on one or two of these in 2023, you’ll likely notice marked improvement. It’s a New Year and a time for new beginnings. Cheers to a new, improved, and more efficient medical practice. Learn how edgeMED can help and be sure to check the Healthy Snacks blog for more expert insights, best practices and industry trends.
