Effectively running a practice takes skill, exceptional patient care, timely/accurate billing and flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing healthcare billing landscape. A process that worked a year ago may not be as effective today. Codes change. Medicare requirements change. Software and its capabilities change. If there is one thing consistent about medical billing, it is change.
An in-house billing department has many competing demands for their time and attention. Staying current with coding changes, monitoring to ensure denied claims are properly worked, and making sure billing gets done timely make for a busy business office in any practice. As the owner and chief decision maker, how can you monitor to ensure the billing department is running efficiently? Below is a helpful list of key metrics to monitor each month to help everyone in the business office stay on top of medical billing.
- Clinic key metrics
- Number of new patients
- Overall patient visits
- Charges
- Charge per visit
- Pay per visit
- Adjustments
- Collections
- Statements mailed
- Days sales outstanding (DSO)
- Track how long it takes for you to be paid starting from when the patient was seen to when the payment was officially received.
- Adjustments report
- Monitor adjustments to verify you are being paid your contracted rate and the cost of case is not exceeding reimbursement.
- Keep track of these to make sure you are always on top of any delayed payments or follow-up notices that need to be made.
When you’re looking back at how your practice has evolved over the year, these reports will give great insight into if it’s been a positive or negative change. If there are issues happening, these will also show the problem areas that should be targeted for an improved billing process.
Even with the right monitoring tools and software, however, billing can be a very large task for an in-house billing department. If you’ve been thinking about the benefits of outsourcing your billing, our expert billing staff at Outsource Receivables Inc. can be your trusted medical billing partner. Contact us to learn more.