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How an effective revenue cycle management benefits your practice

October 1, 2019

Medical billing and coding are complicated. For many medical practices, they are often overwhelming when combined with all the other responsibilities your staff has. If this process is plaguing your practice, a structured revenue cycle management (RCM) system may need to be implemented to help your practice operate more smoothly and optimize cash flow.

The various parts of the cycle all interact with each other, which can add layers of complexity to physician practice management. That’s why outsourcing your RCM process to a staff of healthcare billing services professionals should be a crucial part of your management strategy.

6 Ways to Make Your RCM More Efficient and How Coronis Can Help Optimize the Process

Improve Verification of Patient Accounts

Patient accounts include a myriad of aspects, from medical history and mailing addresses to demographics and insurance. Streamlining all aspects is important not only for the revenue cycle but also for the patient’s experience. This can allow for improved quality of medical care and make for an easier overall process.

Implement Technology to Improve Billing Process

If you’re not utilizing technology to its capability, chances are your practice is operating inefficiently. Update your systems or install new ones so that things like charge captures and claim submissions are taken care of more quickly and accurately. Other aspects that can be improved include:

  • Summary of charges
  • Receipts
  • Adjustments
  • Accounts receivable analysis

By getting patients their bill sooner rather than later, you have a better chance of receiving payments on time. This also means insurance companies get bills faster so that if a claim is denied, you have more time to process it again.

Provide Unmatched Customer Service

This may not seem crucial to RCM, but consider this: there are many other places your patients can go for healthcare, so provide them not only with the best healthcare but also the best customer service. Encourage and schedule patients to come back in for follow-ups.

Also, manage your schedule well – don’t overbook so that patients have long wait times. Make sure to leave room in your scheduling to allow for urgent and/or emergency care cases as well as for referrals. You’ll be surprised at how this impacts your RCM.

Take Advantage of Cash Flow Opportunities

When you provide unparalleled customer service, patients are more willing to undergo follow-ups regularly, exemplifying the various cash flow opportunities that routinely present themselves. By having an outsourced staff of physician practice management professionals to help point out these simple, yet often overlooked, opportunities that can increase revenue, these can be maximized while you continue focusing on your specialty – patient care.

Expert Revenue Cycle Claim Scrubbing

Small errors can lead to big losses, so it’s essential that information is coded correctly and that reporting and analysis are done properly. Claims can be processed more efficiently and insurance companies will pay more quickly. Furthermore, claim denials are reduced and reimbursements are more timely. Learn more about revenue cycle management at Wikipedia.org.

Minimize Gaps in Cash Flow Cycle

In addition to ensuring that patients and insurance companies get the bills faster, the number of outstanding bills your practice has in account receivables, which is a major gap that’s easy to overlook, should be as low as possible. This can be mitigated with comprehensive and regular follow-ups on non-payments, sending multiple statements during billing cycles, and staying on top of delinquencies as well as claim denials.

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