How to reduce AR days for Cardiology Billing?
Outstanding Accounts Receivable (AR) in healthcare are one of the most pressing issues confronting the practices. In fact, healthcare providers are frequently looking for the best solutions to reduce their receivables for more than 30 days, as well as ways to prevent them from happening in the first place. Accounts receivable (AR) that is more than 90 days old is a key industry metric for determining the health of your cardio practice.
According to healthcare data, AR over 90 days is in the average 15-20% range.
If you have a greater percentage of AR that is more than 90 days outstanding, you obviously have a severe cardiology billing problem on your hands.
Lesser the number of days in A/R means greater efficiency and faster payments. That’s why the majority of cardiologists want to strive for an average A/R cycle of 30 days for smooth cash flows.
Reasons for Increased AR Days for Cardiology Billing:
- Delays in filing claims
- Ineffective eligibility determination
- Enhanced claim rejections
- Increased denials and a clumsy appeals process
- Inaccurate coding
- Errors in data entry
- Delays in credentialing
- Inadequate posting procedure
As you can see, the majority of these issues can be easily addressed.
Focus on Front-End
By separating administrative work from your cardiology settings, you can concentrate on your front end. When a patient is scheduled, a staff member can be notified and can begin verifying insurance information and eligibility, requesting pre-authorization, and estimating patient liability. Obtaining pre-authorization in advance helps you to avoid rejected claims and keeps AR days for Cardiology Billing under control. You won’t have to worry about patient collections if your front-end team works efficiently.
Collect at the Service Time
You can also follow the policy of insisting each patient to pay their co-pay before leaving your place. This will reduce aged receivables and bad debt. Also, ask your staff to submit a report of co-pays collected so that you can quickly identify delinquent payments. Some cardiologists are also instituting a ‘card on file policy,’ which requires patients to keep their insurance cards on file.
Accuracy is The Key
The key to quality cardiology billing and coding is accuracy. Accurate documentation of Medical Reports, correct usage of Codes, accuracy in Demo entry, Charge Entry, and Payment Posting are critical for the overall quality of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). Inadvertent errors and omissions in any of the RCM scope can result in claim denials. Therefore, adequate process knowledge and experience in handling the scope efficiently are required to keep accounts receivable under control.
Tracking and Analysing
A streamlined and systematic process can help you to reduce the likelihood of denials. However, a monthly tracking system will help you gain better control over paid vs. low-paid and denied claims and aid in taking immediate and necessary reimbursement steps. Also, analyzing the denial reasons ensures your cardiology practice that the appropriate billing team is notified in order to avoid repetition.
Management of Denials
A timely and efficient Denial Management Process ensures that collection opportunities are maximized. Because claims with higher AR days for Cardiology Billing have a lower chance of being paid, identifying claim denials and working towards appeal and resubmission within the timely filing/appeal limit (TFL) should be part of revenue cycle management.
Follow-up on Accounts Receivable
It is critical to follow up on resubmitted claims on a regular basis in order to get them paid and revenue collected. When it comes to processing new claims, any payor prioritizes denials and appeals over denials and appeals. Therefore, the AR follow-up team should be well-versed in the nuances of following up on claims on a regular and efficient basis until they are fully resolved.
Streamlined and Contemporary Process
Undoubtedly, cardiology billing and coding guidelines and regulations are constantly changing. Such changes make it necessary for every cardiology billing company to keep their process current by updating their policies, protocols, work process, and training their staff at any time to meet the current demand. Keeping atop is required at all times to ensure that you do not encounter denials for any unknown reason.
Outsourcing Accounts Receivable to 24/7 Medical Billing Services
Reducing accounts receivable demands a follow-up of a systematic approach to cardiology billing for your practice. But most of the providers are preoccupied with patient care and cannot devote much time to improving their cardiology billing and collections.
Outsourcing may be the best way to improve your Accounts Receivable. A cardiology billing company like 24/7 Medical Billing Services is a need of an hour that can handle the RCM process efficiently and effectively. 24/7 Medical Billing Services is an experienced billing and coding company that has the expertise and connections with the payor to expedite your AR and Denial Management process.
Read more: All You Need To Know About Cardiology Billing Services
