Setting your medical practice up for financial success in the New Year
Even if 2023 wasn’t your best financial year, the good news is that the New Year ushers in countless opportunities to improve revenue cycle management processes and become more profitable. To increase revenue and promote financial sustainability, you’ll need to seize those opportunities. Here are eight ways to do that starting immediately.
1. Assess your revenue cycle management team. Any sound financial strategy begins with an assessment. What are your medical practice team’s strengths and weaknesses? Consider individual assessments and team surveys to identify and address challenges, knowledge gaps, and interest in professional development opportunities. Remember: You’re only as strong as your weakest link.
2. Remove burdensome tasks from your to-do list. This tip applies to the entire medical practice. To lower costs, practices must find ways to increase efficiency across the board. In revenue cycle management specifically, this often takes the form of robotic process automation as well as technologies that promote patient self-service. Medical practices that leverage these solutions can easily gain efficiency with scheduling, patient check-in, appointment reminders, claim-status checks, and so much more.
3. Set revenue cycle management goals. This may sound obvious, but many medical practice managers don’t necessarily take the time to articulate specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals. For example, do you want to attract 20% more patients by the end of 2024? Reduce denials by 10% in the first quarter? Increase your overall medical practice revenue by $10,000 a month? Engage in an alternative payment model? Negotiate a three percent increase in at least one payer contract?
The possibilities are endless. Being as clear as possible with what you’re trying to achieve helps everyone get on board, and it becomes very easy to see whether you’re on track to meet your goals or whether you still have work to do.
Here are four questions that can help narrow your focus:
What is my current level of medical practice performance?
How will I define success in the next 12 months?
What steps must I take to achieve this success?
What barriers or challenges might I encounter, and how can I overcome them?
4. Improve your medical practice culture. Now is the time to increase salaries, provide more comprehensive benefits, and arm staff with technology that makes their jobs easier. While you’re at it, consider selecting a ‘word of the year’ that embodies your work culture and what you’ll strive for in the months ahead. Choose something positive and inspirational. For example, perhaps one or more of these terms resonates with you: Engage, integrity, strength, or quality. Incorporate these words into your medical practice mission statement, policies, procedures, job descriptions, and more.
5. Learn from your mistakes. Perform an in-depth medical coding audit to help you answer these important questions: Did the medical practice experience any significant denials, reduced payments, or post-payment recoupments? Take a closer look at these cases. What happened? Do you notice any themes? For example, do you frequently miss deadlines for filing timely claims? What about lack of medical necessity—is it a problem with nonspecific codes? Do payers commonly down code your evaluation and management (E/M) levels because clinical documentation often omits critical details? What are the lessons learned, and how can you improve medical billing processes going forward to promote financial sustainability? The past is the past. Now is the time to embrace the future and a new financial mindset.
6. Add new services to your medical practice offerings. The calendar year 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule includes many new billable services that can help offset payment cuts. You owe it to yourself to explore these options as part of your medical billing efforts to increase revenue in the New Year. Pay close attention to E/M add-on services for longitudinal care that could help you recoup the revenue you deserve.
7. Ask patients how you can improve. This is one of the smartest steps you can take to improve overall medical practice performance and revenue. Let patient input and feedback guide decisions that will enhance retention. For example, do patients want a more seamless billing experience? Consider leveraging your patient portal for online bill pay. Do they want a faster check-in? Consider mobile patient check-in to reduce wait times. Paying attention to what patients are saying can help increase retention, volume, and revenue.
8. Look at what your data is telling you. You may think your medical practice finances are in line, but your data may tell a different story. What if you’re an outlier compared to your peers? What if your days in collection has slowly crept up over time with you knowing? What if your patient no-show rate has also increased, and you don’t even know it? Monitor key performance indicators and run reports regularly to ensure your data aligns with any assumptions you might have.
Conclusion
With the New Year comes a fresh slate. A time to begin again. Don’t let the past define you. Now is the time for your medical practice to shine. Chart a course toward financial sustainability starting today. Learn how edgeMED can help and be sure to check the Healthy Snacks blog for more expert insights, best practices and industry trends.
