If your medical practice is like many others, your revenue doesn't seem to reflect the fact that you're seeing more patients, working harder and for longer hours than you were a few years ago. It's time to see if your practice is suffering from some internal bleeding of red ink, and if it is, what you can do to stop the outflow of money lost in silent, unseen ways. And it may be time to see how effective your
medical billing software is in helping you to maximize your revenue.
1. Stop doing stuff for free – Some practices don't claim everything they legally can for the services they provided. For instance, if you bill for a vaccine but don't claim the vaccine administration code, you just shortchanged yourself. If you billed for administering an injection but didn't bill for what you injected, you just lost out. An efficient medical billing software along with an electronic superbill can help you claim everything that you are due for the services you rendered. Stop leaving money with the insurance companies!
2. Code correctly – We're not saying to upcode, we're just saying that you need to code correctly for what you did. If you bill for a 99213 when your documentation shows that you actually provided a 99214 visit, you're going to get paid about 25% less for that visit than you should. Multiply that by several patients a day and the number of providers in your office, and you’ll see why it's crucial to code correctly.
3. Use an up-to-date and accurate superbill – You might call it an encounter form or charge sheet, but the important thing is that it capture all the charges you are legally entitled to. If you're using outdated CPT or ICD-9 codes, your claims may be denied which will cause extra work for your biller. And if your superbill doesn't have commonly provided services on it or a place for modifiers, your providers are not likely to write them in. Be sure to track your superbills, too. They're like money, and misplacing one or two a day totals big bucks out the door. It's best when your medical billing software can notify you of missing superbills.
4. Provide your billers with ongoing training – Invest money in training your billers, just as you provide CME's to your providers. It’ll pay off in the long run. There is little benefit to having state-of-the-art medical billing software with untrained billers.
