5 Surprising Ways to Optimize Cash Flow For Physicians

Article Highlights

• Healthcare providers leave billions of dollars on the table every year due to poor medical billing processes.
• There are many surprising ways for physicians to optimize cash flow through improved medical billing.
• PMB will handle your medical billing processes to increase cash flow.

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Did you know that healthcare providers fail to collect about $125 billion annually due to inefficient medical billing practices? Poor management of medical billing and accounts receivable tracking can lead to significant monetary losses for physicians and other healthcare providers. Unfortunately, most entities do not realize or react to the situation until it is too late.

Outdated, improper, or inconsistent billing procedures are often to blame. Precision Medical Billing (PMB) can help correct poor medical billing practices, which will lead to improvements in revenue collection.

There are many tools and methods that we utilize to support healthcare providers. Most of our methods revolve around optimizing cash flow. Some of these methods may seem trivial, but you will be surprised to learn just how effective they are to support cash flow.

How We Support Physicians With Cash Flow Optimization

Consider these five ways that we can help revamp your medical billing processes to optimize cash flow for your entity.

Method 1: Tidy Up Your Business Office

What does tidying up the practices used in your office have to do with cash flow? Everything! Following this method promotes efficiency and can provide staff with the clear mindset needed to accomplish the goals of your organization.

• Who is responsible for which steps in the workflow?
• Who is responsible for contacting insurance companies regarding claims?
• Who has authority to make decisions that affect revenue collection and eventually cash flow?

Defining roles and responsibilities in your office is critical to ensure that everyone is on the same page driving toward a common goal.

Another important clean-up method is to review how team members are using digital tools. Oftentimes, a simple review of software usage can resolve common issues. Knowing where to store files, how to access them, which users have access to which files, and how to securely perform tasks in your software is important for any physician’s office.

If you enlist help from Precision Medical Billing, our professionals can provide advice on how to adjust or implement processes that align with your specific software capabilities.

Method 2: Be Proactive With Patient Billings

Once a service or procedure has been scheduled for a patient, office billing staff should be proactive by initiating the patient financial process. Getting the necessary pre-authorizations, submitting required documentation, and researching the proper procedure codes to use in billing will make your team’s job easier and more efficient.

Investing this much time in billing can be difficult for offices that are short-staffed and busy, especially when a complex payer mix is involved. Therefore, healthcare providers should turn to Precision Medical Billing for assistance. We will anticipate and address challenges in advance, preparing your organization for success in managing the cash flow cycle.

Taking proactive measures and being prepared can also result in better patient outcomes and satisfaction. We can help get you to where you want to be improving patient care.

Method 3: Stay Up-to-Date on Evolving Regulations

Staying on top of the latest healthcare regulations is one of the most difficult tasks for a busy office. Very little time is available for daily billing and claims processing, then adding training sessions and regulatory education into the mix can make it nearly impossible to keep up with.

Yet, focusing on regulatory changes is critical for healthcare providers that are committed to optimizing their cash flow. That’s why it’s important to work with professionals that are committed to ensuring that new regulations are incorporated into your processes. This will ensure the timely submission of claims, smooth processing, and avoidance of penalties.

Precision Medical Billing knows how taxing it can be to stay current on new laws and regulations that affect medical billing. We commit our staff to researching ever-changing healthcare regulations, helping healthcare providers implement processes to adhere to these changes, and overseeing their proper maintenance.

While your office may not have the necessary staff or time to keep eyes on regulatory changes at all times, PMB makes it our priority to keep you informed and compliant.

Method 4: Address Credit Balances Promptly

Managing cash flow in healthcare is largely dependent on your ability to balance insurance billing, patient billing, and payment remittance on an even schedule. If one of these elements gets off track, it can cause the entire billing process to slow down or even come to a halt.

In certain instances, patients may end up with credit balances on their accounts that must be refunded. Instead of holding onto these balances to process at the end of the month, we recommend going through patient balances on a regular basis. This will provide administrators with up-to-date reports that reflect how cash flow is being managed.

Certain billing practices can lead to timely credit balance processing for the benefit of both the physician and the patient, increasing patient satisfaction. Precision Medical Billing is skilled in these processes and can promote them within your practice.

Method 5: Maintain Focus on Your Payer Mix

The success of a healthcare organization’s billing department is often tied to their ability to drive down costs and expenses. A simple equation of making more than you spend helps your organization succeed financially, but we know this is easier said than done.

Consider this surprising tactic to support cash flow: focus on your payer mix so that you can identify increases in fee schedules that require negotiation. Getting the best deal possible will help prevent your practice from having to increase costs to avoid an impact on your revenue.

Unfortunately, few healthcare providers have the time and expert staff required to effectively negotiate fee schedules to preserve revenue and enhance cash flow in your practice. Precision Medical Billing can help with this method, as our team is well-versed in this aspect of practice management. Let us take this off your plate.

We are large enough to be able to specialize our focus by payer mix. For example, we have a specialist for Blue Cross Blue Shield to focus on BCBS claims, and we have another specialist that focuses on Aetna claims. We can handle each insurance company that you deal with through our specialized service.

Contact PMB for a Free Consultation

Does your practice need dedicated support for any of these surprising ways to optimize cash flow in healthcare? We can help! Don’t let outdated or mismanaged medical billing processes get in the way of collecting the revenue that your practice has earned.

Find out more about our custom medical billing services for physicians. To get a free quote for your practice, contact us today. We are committed to identifying the services that would most benefit your practice to increase cash flow.