Billing Tips for Your Front-desk Staff

Want to improve your revenue cycle and make billing smooth and effective?

If the answer is yes, then you will not only need expert billers but also well-trained front desk staff. Yes, you read that right. Front desk staff have a significant role to play in the billing and collections process for any practice.

According to the industry experts, if your practice is having post-visit collection issues, then it is very important to evaluate the front-desk policies and procedures. It is important to ensure that everyone is on the same team and focused on the same goal. Only when everyone is on top of their game, bottom line of your practice will be healthier.

So if you want to enhance the collections and medical billing process for your practice, then you first need to start with your front-desk staff.

Here are some of the effective tips that the front-desk staff can consider to boost collections and help the practice get paid on time:

• It is very important to begin the collection process even before the patient has entered the clinic. Your staff needs to verify the insurance plan of the patient, confirm their co-pay and also check whether or not they have unmet deductibles. If there are patients who have an outstanding balance or cannot pay in full, then it is necessary to refer them to the back-office staff.
• Your front-desk staff needs to ensure that the insurance information is not outdated. They should ask for a copy of patients’ insurance cards because insurance plans change frequently and not many patients remember to update their files at their doctor’s office. It will be a waste of time if your staff is spending time sorting returned claims and locating patients’ information.
• Every detail needs to be double checked by the front-desk staff before the patient leaves the clinic. They need to review the encounter form or super-bill and collect additional money that is due from self-pay patients performed beyond the standard office visit. Efforts need to be made to make payment easy for patients either through mobile devices, patient portals, credit cards or even bank cheques if needed. Patients will have to be referred to the back office if they are not able to pay in full so that they can be put on a payment plan.