Five Practical Questions to Answer Before Your Next Revenue Cycle Assessment

Managing your practice’s revenue cycle requires an honest look at your current workflow. From front office pre-collections to denials management, MEREM Health wants to help you determine what is working and what isn’t by offering a Free Revenue Cycle Audit. Before you proceed, there are 5 practical questions you should answer to better prepare for your next revenue cycle assessment.

Do your patients know that their payments are due before the come in to see you?

Are your front office staff aware of and clearly communicating the patient’s financial obligations or are you assuming that patients know what is due? Check to make sure your policy is listed on your website and on all billing statements to make sure they get it.

Are you checking your Collections Report daily?

Like the speedometer in your favorite car, you’ve got to keep a watchful eye on your daily collections to ensure that revenue loss isn’t stacking up daily. Your investment of time in making collections monitoring a daily practice will help you to quickly see

how many patients were seen that day
how much money was collected
how many patients were collected from

If a patient wasn’t collected from, your report should also explain why that occurred. This will be useful tool in keeping your front office staff accountable.

How do you hold your front desk accountable and what measurable performance do you review?

Pre-Collections are just a part of their many responsibilities. Make sure that your front desk staff are accurate in collecting patient information, reviewing and collecting patient deductibles, copays, and past due balances. Also, be sure to look at their preauthorization efforts in comparison to claims denial causes.

With a typical Medical Billing company, their patient collection efforts only go as far as issuing statements and generating “bad debt” reports of accounts that need to be turned over to collections. When accounts reach this point, we have found that less than 50% of these balances are ever recovered.

At Merem Healthcare Solutions, we work with our client partners to develop a Patient “Pre-Collections” strategy that is both aggressive and fair. We work with your front office staff and management to develop a Point-of-Service (POS) collections process to effectively collect more money up-front.

Have you invested in technology and continuing education?

In order to have the most efficient billing process, your technology must be up to date. EMR, scheduling programs, and medical billing software can make a big impact on streamlining your practice’s financials and workflow.

Also, ongoing training for your staff is a timely but beneficial investment to ensure they are properly trained and up to date on all policy changes and are knowledgeable of filing deadlines.

What are your KPIs and how are they performing?

Comparing monthly reports can provide a clear indication of existing data trends. Monthly reporting does a great job of showcasing your monthly spending, which is important for budgeting in the present, but it does not do a proficient job of illustrating trends and overall revenue cycle performance. Custom Reporting is a great asset to collect and evaluate trending data.

If you do not monitor your monthly reporting, months can go by and many practice owners have no idea whether their practice has grown or at least maintained and balanced their revenue. A monthly dashboard with custom performance metrics is invaluable. [For More Information…]

MEREM Healthcare Solutions offers a FREE Revenue Cycle Audit and Practice Consultation Solutions for specialty clinicians, groups and healthcare entities. We deliver custom healthcare solutions to help you better understand your practice performance. If you are in need of consulting services for your medical practice or would like a revenue cycle audit performed, Request a Free Consultation with MEREM Health today. For more information, call (205) 329-7519.

Amanda Cherry