How to Improve Patient Collections - Part 3
Over the past few months I’ve been writing about this area of patient collections and what can be done in an office to help improve on them. Looking at EOBs and keeping payments up-to-date is the next thing I recommend. It’s easy to get behind. Offices get busy and this may not seem as vital to the revenue cycle as long as those checks are coming in.
So why is it a problem not to keep an eye on EOBs and keep payments current?
- Billing software won’t give accurate reports. With the Accounts Receivable numbers out of date, it’s hard to tell if the biller is doing their job well or if help is needed. Is the 30-day A/R higher than it should be? Is the 60-day A/R growing dangerously? What are the problem areas? With EOBs current, the information needed to manage the billing dept. is there and can be counted on.
- Patient statements can’t go out correctly. Unless the front desk knows exactly what a patient is going to owe at the time of their visit, the practice is depending on those EOBs to come back showing what patient responsibility will be. Correct patient balances means increased likelihood that they will pay.
- Billing problems can be missed for far too long. Some denials come back due to simple billing errors which could be rapidly corrected. Other issues that need a biller’s attention can be missed entirely when EOBs are out of date. A biller should be on top of handling those problems to keep the overall A/R low.
- An office staff can waste time researching, discussing and following up on claims that have already been paid or responded to, which gets expensive in office resources. When EOBs are kept current, everyone is in the know.
For many practices, this is standard operating procedure. For many, it’s an area that suffers. I highly recommend that EOBs are collected at least weekly from every place they come to you whether paper or electronic, and are properly entered into your system, with any payment issues tackled from there.
If you missed the earlier articles on improving patient collections and would like to check them out, please click here to visit the blog page of our website. As always, I’m here to talk about your billing issues. Give me a call!
Have a great week!
Kat Jordan is the Owner of Orion Billing Services, a professional external billing company. With extensive experience in healthcare billing, Orion is well prepared to help with thorough, knowledgeable claims submission, follow-up and collection.
Call (415) 851-1605 for more information.