5 Proven Techniques To Reduce Your AR Aging Days
Improving your accounts
receivable in healthcare necessitates active management of your revenue cycle
as well as the elimination of any inefficiencies in your processes. In fact, putting
effort into optimizing administration, running AR reports, and tracking claims
helps you to recover revenue that would otherwise be lost.
Have your Ageing
Accounts Receivable begun to accumulate?
You might want to
consider outsourcing reimbursement collection to a revenue cycle management (RCM) company. Let's get started.
What
exactly is an Account Receivable?
A medical account
receivable is the outstanding reimbursement owed to providers for issued
treatments and services, regardless of whether the patient is financially
responsible or their insurance company is. Healthcare service providers must
stay on top of efforts to collect accounts receivable reimbursement.
The longer an Accounts Recievable goes unpaid, the
less likely it is that healthcare providers will receive payment at all, i.e.,
after 120 days, clinicians can expect only ten cents on the dollar.
Ongoing
Obstacles to Achieving Short AR Turnaround—the ACA
Following the
Affordable Care Act, many Americans enrolled in high-deductible plans in order
to reduce their monthly expenses. However, many patients will be responsible
for a higher percentage of their medical bills as a result of this option.
Recovering
reimbursements from individual patients places a greater burden on the AR
processes of medical providers. Providers must deal with missed collections
during visits, people delaying payments due to financial difficulties, the
unpredictability of AR duration, and other issues.
Strategies
to Improve your AR aging days
When inefficiencies and
oversights in processes go unaddressed, ARs begin to accumulate, age, and turn
into revenue leakage. That’s why there is a need to opt for the following
strategies:
Set
Expectations for Payment
Providers can reduce
delinquent payments by setting financial expectations for patients ahead of
scheduled visits. Furthermore, providers who do not make a concerted effort to
collect patient copays before patients leave care settings enhances the risk for
losing revenue. When patients do not pay right away after their appointments,
providers are 20% less likely to collect reimbursements.
Collect
Patient Portions Promptly
Collecting immediate
payment from patients expedites the completion of one portion of the AR cycle
and simplifies tracking efforts further along the AR cycle. Integrate prompt
collection with release processes, as hospitals write off nearly half of all
patient financial responsibility as bad debt.
Even if patients are
unable to pay their portion of the bill immediately after receiving care,
providers should consider offering partial payment plans to lock in some
reimbursement and establish an easily traceable schedule.
Charge
Entry
Incorrect charge entry
has an impact on providers' bottom lines. According to research, up to 1% of
net charges are incorrectly captured due to discrepancies between documentation
and billed services or missed charges. While a 1% loss may appear to be
acceptable, a hospital with yearly revenue of $250 million stands to lose $2.5
million due to administrative errors. The healthcare providers must keep a
track of thousands of healthcare codes for various procedure charges to avoid
revenue leakages and risk audit penalties.
Submission
of Claims
After providers have captured
and coded charges, they must submit claims to payors and patients in order to
be reimbursed. Charge entry errors and inaccuracies in patient information on
submitted claims result in claim denial and extended AR cycles. In addition to
bridging the gap between care and reimbursement, resubmitting claims raises
staff costs.
When patients have
additional insurance coverage, submitting claims for Medicare reimbursement
becomes even more difficult. Providers must keep track of:
·
The
patient's supplemental insurance information, as well as whether or not the
coverage is still in effect.
·
That
the supplemental insurer received the correct Medicare bill.
AR
Tracking
Tracking your accounts
receivable on a monthly basis provides providers with the information they need
to determine those who are at risk of becoming leaked revenue and contributing
to bad debt. Providers can compare ARs over time to identify potentially
dangerous trends and identify any outstanding reimbursements that may be simple
to close.
Providers should examine their account
receivable data to decide about collection rates and aged debtors.
Reduce
your AR
aging days with 24/7 Medical Billing Services
Now, it’s quite clear
that unpaid claim research is a time-consuming process that can take anywhere
from five minutes to an hour per claim.
And, the best solution to deal with such a hectic task
is outsourcing medical billing and coding services.
When you use a
dedicated medical billing services from the professional
medical billing company
like 24/7 Medical Billing Services, you have a team of experts working on your
AR cleanup and insurance follow-up on a daily basis.
The team will review
your AR and ageing claims to determine why open balances remain unpaid, analyze
the reasons, take the necessary steps to recover the amount owed, verify
receipt of claims with insurance companies, and enter the claims into your
practice management system—cleaning up your AR.
About 24/7 Medical
Billing Services:
We are a medical
billing company that offers ‘24/7
Medical Billing Services’ and support physicians, hospitals, medical
institutions and group practices with our end to end medical billing solutions.
We help you earn more revenue with our quick and affordable services. Our
customized Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) solutions allow physicians to attract
additional revenue and reduce administrative burden or losses.
Contact:
24/7 Medical Billing
Services
Tel: +1 888-502-0537
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