Maintaining Financial Health of Your Family Practice

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Rising operational costs, changed payer policies, decreasing reimbursement, and increased compliances adversely affect the financial health of family practice. In addition, operational inefficiencies and waste cut even deeper into profits and income. The presence of a certain amount of each factor is inherent in any family practice. In this blog, we shared ways your family practice might be losing money and prevention tips that can help you to maintain the financial health of your practice.

Efficient Family Practice Billing

Medical billing and coding are backbones of the revenue cycle of your family practice. Following bad billing practices might create unnecessary financial losses. Bad billing is caused more often by the incompetence of your in-house staff. For example, front desk staff may fail to verify and document patient demographics and insurance details. Due to this, claims may be sent late or to the wrong payer and patients may walk out without being billed properly. You have Bad to familiarize yourself with proper billing practices and need to enforce them in your practice. Basic billing activities like confirming insurance coverage, processing new claims, and following up on past-due accounts has to be done as per quality standards. At the end of the week, review reports of practice’s charges, collections, adjustments, and accounts receivable for unexplained changes or trends. 

Accurate Coding

The next most common way to maintain the financial health of your family practice is to code accurately. Most family physicians fail to keep their coding knowledge up-to-date, resulting in reduced reimbursement and delayed or denied claims. Some family physicians under-code, fearing the penalties for over-coding and unbundling. Leaving coding completely to the support staff could lead to lots of errors since they don’t know what actually occurred in the exam room. Medical coding guidelines, and payer policies update regularly, you need ongoing continuing education. Periodically you can have a coding audit done by an experienced consultant. Frequent coding audits will suggest a more accurate diagnosis, and procedure codes and will also check the documentation as per industry standards.