The 4 Most Common Reasons Your Practice’s Claims Are Bouncing

Billing can be time-consuming, tedious and frustrating to say the least. It can be even more frustrating when the medical claims that you worked so hard to submit are bounced right back. What are the most common reasons that a medical practice’s claims are bouncing back after submission?

Minor Errors

Just like it’s easy to miss a comma in an email or mistype a word, it’s also very easy to make minor errors in medical claims. Reimbursements are often denied or delayed due to seemingly-small mistakes, like forgetting to include a plan ID number or mixing up a letter. Because front desks are already so busy and overwhelmed, mistakes can fall through the cracks. One winning solution to this is using a professional outsourced claims processing service that will review claims before submission and look just for errors. The time saved from going through a resubmission is much less than time spent reviewing claims.

Missing Information

Another common reason that claims are bouncing is insufficient information. You always need to submit documentation to back up claims, and you should always supply each insurance provider the information that is requested to process payment in an expedient manner. Again, it is much easier to put the effort into properly gathering everything beforehand instead of needing to go back in the future to find the right documentation.

Skipping Authorization

If you needed authorization before a procedure was performed and it was not secured, you shouldn’t be too surprised that a claim bounced back your way. You should verify whether or not prior authorization is needed before you schedule the procedure. When it is time to bill, ensure that you also include the prior authorization number on the submitted claim. While prior authorizations can seem like an annoying extra step, they are vital to ensuring that claims receive approval in a prompt manner.

Changes on the Patient End

One of the most common reasons for claim denial isn’t necessarily your practice’s fault at all. Claims are often denied because a patient’s coverage has changed, the plan or payer has been changed or coverage has been terminated altogether. Even if you think everything is the same as the last time you spoke with a patient, you should always ask to confirm insurance information and see an insurance card at each appointment.

Trust the Experts at Vetters Enterprises for your Billing Needs

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

How to Find Patient Data for Value-Based Care Report Requirements

The increased emphasis on value-based care requires doctors and practices to compile detailed patient data for reporting. However, that’s much easier than it sounds! The technology needed to track patient data is available, but also expensive and time-consuming to use. The data that you need isn’t always easily accessible, as patients move from provider to provider (and system to system). How can you find the patient data you need for value-based care report requirements?

What Caused the Change?

The biggest push behind value-based care comes from the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), which requires doctors with over $90,000 in Medicare Part B charges or over 200 Part B beneficiaries to enroll in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) or an Advanced Alternative Payment Model. MIPS includes a whopping 271 quality measures, and every doctor enrolled has to select 6 of them to report on. Private payers might have different requirements, but most require data collection and value-based care reporting.

The Challenge of Value-Based Care Reporting

Electronic health records are being changed and reconfigured to ease the new burden of reporting, but that doesn’t mean the learning curve has been easy. Unfortunately, the current value-based care metrics are not always easy to find or track, and there are plenty of issues with the system itself. Some doctors feel that tracking puts the emphases on electronic health records (EHR) and not treating patients. Other doctors are concerned that clinical quality is measured on process metrics, like whether or not preventative screenings take place, instead of actual outcomes.

How to Find the Data You Need

One approach involves tying your measurement to overall strategic priorities. One successful healthcare network encouraged all physicians and specialists to focus on 40 total metrics. While most of those metrics were tied to primary care, specialists received alerts at appointments when the patient they were seeing was also overdue for a pap smear or colonoscopy. By encouraging a team effort to meet tracking requirements, this network found great success.

Another successful strategy is creating your own internal metric definitions. One of the most common reporting issues is payers asking providers to report on measures that seem to be identical. However, the difference is usually in the details. To create standard internal metrics, look at the best-practice suggestions from industry leaders and work with the appropriate staff members at your practice. For example, before arriving at a standard definition for diabetes metrics, consult with primary care doctors, diabetes educators and endocrinologists.

While there is no magic way to track and report patient data yet, your practice should be engaged in constantly refining the process to get the best results for your patients. 

Partner with Vetters Enterprises Help with Your Value-Based Care Reporting

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

Is Your Practice Location Hurting Your Bottom Line?

What is one of the keys to a successful medical practice? It’s all about location, location, location! When you are trying to find the perfect practice location for your office, there are many factors that you must consider to ensure long-term profitability and success. Whether you’ve been in the same location for a decade or are finding space for the first time, here’s what you need to know about choosing the right location. 

Why Does Location Matter?

Three recent studies found a single common factor in what matters to patients—location. 6 out of 10 patients choose a practice primarily based on location. In fact, convenient location is twice as important to patients as your practice’s success rates or outcomes.

Competition Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

In neighborhoods and cities where medical practices are on every street, it might seem like you have no chance to succeed against already-established doctors with a reputation in the community. Don’t be intimidated by competition, as there are many clever ways to differentiate your practice from the crowd. Check the population-to-professional ratio for the area around you. In areas with low numbers of professionals, there won’t be much competition. However, in busy areas marketing, reputation and customer service can make a huge difference.

Demographics Make the Difference

Another key to a great practice location is staying on top of ever-changing demographics. Is the population declining or growing? In many cases, it’s easiest to gain traction in newer communities than tight, well-established locales. Pay attention to numerous demographics including household income averages, age distribution, the types of jobs and population growth.

Look Around You

The most successful practice locations are often those surrounded by other popular things. What else is located within 5 miles of your potential practice location? Are there banks or grocery stores? What traffic patterns are there? In general, a location that is passed by 40,000 or more cars in a 24-hour period is considered to be a retail location. If you set up shop in a smaller town, you might have higher visibility thanks to less roadside clutter, but you also won’t have access to as many potential patients.

Partner with Vetters Enterprises for a Great Practice Location

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

Patient Payments Simplified

Most practitioners don’t know that you are 50% less likely to recoup a patient copay if they leave your office without paying.  This impacts your cash flow more than you know.

I wanted to share with you a great idea from a great company – Payspan.  Some folks who work with Medical Assistance or any of the Beacon Health Options carriers may be very familiar with logging on to Payspan to pick up their EOPs but they have a great program for helping you get that payment up front that you need.  Check out this webinar if you can.

 

Webinar: Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments

Join us Thursday, October 6th for the Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments Webinar

If you missed Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments Webinar join usOctober 6th, 2016 and let us help you accelerate patient payments.

The abundance of high-deductible health plans is presenting unique revenue challengesfor healthcare providers, and many practices are struggling to quickly and accurately collect patient financial responsibility dollars. There are simple tips and solutions every practice can adopt to increase patient revenue and improve operational efficiency.

SAVE YOUR SEAT TODAY
Please join us on Thursday, October 6, for a complimentary webinar titled, “Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments.” We will be speaking about:

  • Best practices for dealing with the increase in patient responsibility and high-deductible health plans;
  • Best practices for accelerating patient payments; and
  • Innovative patient payment solutions that will get your practice where it needs to be today.

With the shift to new reimbursement models and the increase in out-of-pocket patient responsibility, it is more important than ever for providers to adopt innovative tools in order to stay financially viable. If you are interested in maximizing revenue in today’s evolving healthcare economy, join us at 2:00pm, EDT on October 6th, 2016.

Sincerely,

The Payspan Team

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ABOUT PAYSPAN
With the largest healthcare network in the U.S., we provide payment automation services that improve administrative efficiency, meet regulatory requirements, and enable payers and providers to manage new reimbursement strategies. We bring together healthcare expertise with proven financial services technology to empower a new generation of healthcare economics. CONTACT US

 

ICD 10 Delayed – Again

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services posted in August 2014 that the road to ICD-10 compliance will be another year longer.  The new date for conversion is 10/1/2015.  As we’ve published before, this conversion is long over due and WILL be coming at some point even if they keep pushing back the date.

This conversion was not a part of the Affordable Care Act, so if you are thinking that if the ACA goes away so will this conversion and that is just simply “head in the sand” thinking.  This is an implementation of a international coding standard and we here in the US are just behind the curve with the rest of the western world in using this new classification system.  We do need to catch up and we eventually will.  Don’t let this conversion scare you out of your practice!  I have had a lot of providers tell me that they will quit first before converting, and that just isn’t practical.  ICD-10 will benefit the medical community by increasing the accuracy of diagnosis coding and allow entitlement programs and insurance carriers to gain more specificity in tracking diagnosis populations.  With more specificity comes more attention which leads to more reimbursement for the provider.

If you are a small practice, I urge you to check out the CMS website for the “Road to 10” implementation map

Road to 10: CMS Online Tool for Small Practices

CMS has released Road to 10, an online resource built with the help of providers in small practices, is now available. This tool is intended to help small medical practices jumpstart their ICD-10 transition.

“Road to 10” includes specialty references and gives providers the capability to build ICD-10 action plans tailored for their practice needs.

Also, VE Cycle Management specializes in providing solutions that are already ICD-10 ready.  We can help!  Contact us today!

So.. Hey, we are looking for funding!

Well, we have made a lot of contacts since Tracy and I really hit the pavement to keep doctors in private practice from being taken over by hospital and insurance conglomerates.  It’s been a rocky road; the recent government shutdown kept the hubby at home and within the last few weeks another contract I’d had has reduced my hours, so I decided that I believe so much in what we are doing, I am not too proud to beg….

As a result, here is our campaign on Indiegogo http://igg.me/at/vecycle/x/1859127 and our campaign on gofundme.com http://www.gofundme.com/vecycle

Our perks are pretty good if I do say so myself!  Go get yourself a T-Shirt or an iPad Mini!!

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