In the world of medical practices, one of the biggest complaints that is given is that of not being able to get paid on time and for the amount being charged. Why is this the case? Let’s dive into the biggest issues that practices face and how they can improve it when it comes to cash flow and billing.
The Hurdles
As already mentioned, getting paid on time and for the amount listed is one of the hardest things for many medical practices to overcome. The main culprit of missed or delayed payments is due to medical code entry mistakes. In the medical industry, when a service is charged for, it has to be entered in as a certain type of medical code to work with insurance companies. If the code is typed in wrong, it can lead to denied payments by insurance companies, and can start a lengthy road of audits and updating in order to be corrected and finally paid. This process can take weeks and up to months in some cases, for one single bill!
The best way to avoid this situation altogether is by taking chargemaster training seriously in your practice. This training helps the chargemaster and their staff learn how to keep things more accurate, such as medical codes and billing amounts. When things are accurate from the beginning, it can reduce and even eliminate the costly delays that can happen if done otherwise.
Reputable Training
Picking a firm to do chargemaster training that has experience is paramount to your practice’s success. Many training firms also provide automated software solutions that can help to automate many of the manual entry processes that exist at your office. Automation can greatly reduce errors that are done by manual entry, and some software solutions even automate the billing and processing of payments from insurance companies and your patients. The right firm will help you to pick the right software if it applies, and then train your chargemaster on the inner workings and features of the software platform to ensure your practice has everything it needs to be successful.
As you can see, medical practices the world over can benefit greatly from chargemaster training and automated software. With these two things combined, you can help to right the ship by keeping billing itemization accurate in order to speed up the payment process between insurance companies and your medical patients.
