What to focus in Billing Process to resolve financial crisis at your practice ? – A Talk with Medical Analyst

I recently sat down with Software Advice’s medical analyst, Melissa McCormack, who researches and writes buyers’ guides on medical billing software.

Q: What challenges do practice owners face who aren’t regularly running these billing reports or who manually import data?

A: As one doctor I’ve talked to likes to say, “If you can measure it, you can improve it.” Having visibility into what’s going on with your billing is incredibly important—without that insight, you may not even be aware that problems exist. Regularly running some basic reports gives you that needed insight into what’s going on with your finances. Some of these reports could technically be created manually, but doing so would be arduous and would open the door to all kinds of human error. Reports that can be produced automatically through billing software programs give you a quick, comprehensive view, allow you to track trends and pinpoint possible issues.

Q: In your opinion, do you think practices are eager to adopt this type of technology ?

A: Yes and no. Practices that aren’t already using billing or practice management software are probably not eager to implement a new software system. Even those already using billing software but not using it to run reports may have some resistance. As with any change, there’s a learning curve that comes with using new technology, and getting comfortable with a new workflow takes time. At the same time, I think any practice can recognize the benefits of having a clearer picture of your financials and having the insight into your practice that these billing reports can provide.

Q: How does the Accounts Receivable Aging Report help medical practitioners save time and money ?

A: The A/R aging report shows you how long claims have been unpaid. It can help you identify a few things. First, looking at historical data in the report will give you a good “baseline” for your practice – e.g., how long a claim typically takes to be paid. Then looking at current data can help you identify outliers, or try to improve your baseline. One great practical example of how this can save a practice time and money comes from Dr. Sherif Hassan, who tells of a practice looking at the A/R Aging report, who discovered their rejected claims were higher than usual. They dug a little deeper into the report data to find why the claims were being rejected, and they discovered they’d been using some CPT codes that had expired the previous year, causing automatic rejections. If they hadn’t looked at the A/R Aging report, discovering this problem could have been a long and painful process, with rejected claims piling up in the meantime.