Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Accounts Receivable: Improving Your A/R Process With These 4 Tips Means Improving Your Collections

If you aren't following up on denials, you're leaving money on the table.

The economic downturn coupled with looming healthcare changes means that your practice -- and all others -- are under more pressure than ever to collect every penny you deserve. You can refine your accounts receivable (A/R) process quickly and easily to bring in the money without a lot of extra effort.

A/R defined: "Accounts receivable (A/R) is the money that is owed to the practice," explains Elin Baklid-Kunz, MBA, CPC, CCS, a director of physician services in Daytona, Fla., during The Coding Institute's audioconference "Top A/R Tactics: Fight Back Against Lower Payments and Increased Government Scrutiny." Follow these four best practices to set your practice on an improved A/R track and avoid thousands in lost reimbursement.

1. Monitor Each Claim You Send Out

The first step in perfecting your A/R process is to make sure someone in your practice is paying attention to what happens to every claim you submit. Ask questions such as: "did the insurance company even receive the claim?" and "Did the patient pay her copay portion of the bill?"

"There are companies out there I call ‘code it, bill it, and forget it companies,'" says medical coding , billing, and practice management consultant Steven M. Verno, CMBS, CMSCS, CEMCS, CPM-MCS, in The Coding Institute's audioconference "Reveal and Recover Hidden Money You Didn't Know You Missed." "They code the claim, they bill the claim, and then they forget about it. They leave it out there and don't do anything to bring the money in. They don't follow up on the claim."

Source Code :- http://www.supercoder.com/coding-newsletters/my-practice-management-alert/accounts-receivable-improving-your-ar-process-with-these-4-tips-means-improving-your-collections-article

Following up on your submitted claims early in the game can save you time. First ensure that once your practice submits a claim that it is accepted. If the claim is rejected, the first order of business is to research why. Catching it in the initial submission phases saves you time in the long run and ultimately gets your money in the door faster.

Set a reminder: Try placing an event reminder on your Outlook or Web calendar every week that reminds you to check all accounts receivable for the past 30 days. Print a report, and go online or call to check claim statuses.

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