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Written by Reed Tinsley, CPA | May 15, 2012
We all know how important efficiency is to any medical practice, especially its billing and collection functions. To maximize your billing and collection processes, you need to dig deeper into your practice management system’s features. Think about the things that require manual steps to track and accomplish with the current practice management system. Make a checklist. It could be anything from eligibility and verifying benefits to patient reminders and dunning messages placed on patient statements, or it might be automated collection letters and re-set reminders on outstanding claims. Perhaps it is electronic remittances or the ability to sort data and provide meaningful management reports that are laborious to obtain manually. Another important feature is the ability to identify incorrect payer reimbursements.
These are features you should expect from a good practice management system, along with ease of use, accuracy and reliability across the board. If the vendor tells you theses feature are in research and development, it may be a long wait and time is not on your side. Regardless, you need to know if there is an opportunity to get more out of the current system and your vendor is the one to tell you. With the cost of running a medical practice, efficiency and reliability of the practice management’s system is vital to your future.
If you discover there are available system features the practice hasn’t tapped into, work with the vendor on how to get the staff trained and up to speed. I find many medical practices are not using their practice management system to its full capabilities. Don't let this happen to you.
