DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO AGING AND AGING STRATEGIES

It has indeed been established that most of the lost revenue in medical offices is as a result of the aging report not being worked regularly. This implies that the aging of your account receivables is vital to watch because the older bills get, the harder and more expensive they become to collect. The rise in the patient’s financial responsibility in the recent past has even compounded the challenge in resolving aged receivables. With the multitude of new health insurance plans available to patients who are unfamiliar with how it works, medical practitioners continually have increasing aged bills, thus affecting their account receivables. It, therefore, becomes imperative for practices to a thinker of different approaches as well as develops strategies that will effectively minimize aged medical bills.

Here are a few steps;

 HAVE DETAILED ANALYSIS SYSTEMS

There is every need that your practice develops a system of tracking patients’ account receivables. Have a clear opinion of what is driving your patient’s account receivables and do not treat all bills as a whole. Once you notice that the patient’s bill is rising quickly, for example, that could imply inconsistencies in your front-desk processes or the way employees interact with patients about your practice’s financial policy. It could also point to a more significant issue relating to centralized billing deficiency. Therefore all systems must be analyzed, and shortfalls treated immediately to prevent aging bills.

 ESTABLISH A HIGH PRIORITY DESK FOR INSURANCE VERIFICATION

Once your practice can ensure, check, and double-check a patient’s insurance coverage and eligibility, then the issue of aged bills will not arise. This requires a proactive and robust system being put in place for this. Most systems for this seek to verify information like whether the patient has coverage and if deductibles are available for the patient or operating a policy that has already been suspended due to non-payment of premiums. It is therefore paramount that practice employees notify their patients of their findings even before they seek medical care. If this is done, the massive amount of workers employed in tracking aged medical billing will be reduced.

 PATIENT’S ENGAGEMENT IS IMPORTANT

For any practice that intends to avoid excessive aged medical billing, then it’s crucial the practice engages patients early about expectations of their bill so that requests for payment will not come to them as a surprise. This step does not end with providing patients with your payment policy or reminding them of their balances but also requires providing patients easy ways to connect with the practice and pay their bills. With all various types of technology available, tools like an online portal, and other convenient methods of payment can be provided to patients for easy access.

 IN CONCLUSION

Aging of medical bills can be significantly minimized if practices employ workable strategies as itemized above. Also, insist that errors with regards to failed or denied claims be corrected by the employee who made a mistake so that he or she will learn from the mistake and not start a cycle of denied claims. The feedback loop is essential. Engaging employees in finding a solution is the best strategy for solving this issue of aging medical bills.