Five Ways You Can Get Paid Faster

Properly managing incoming revenue is a task that every business must master if they wish for long-term success. The importance of this is heightened during a pandemic where so many people and businesses are struggling with their finances.

For medical practices, managing incoming revenue becomes complicated because, in most cases, you aren’t collecting a lot of the money from the patients themselves; you’re collecting much of it from the insurance companies. And collecting that money requires an enormous amount of documentation and approval to get paid.

It is absolutely essential that you have a firm grip on your internal procedures if you want the incoming revenue to come in at a steady and predictable rate.

In this blog, we’ll examine how you can ensure your practice gets paid faster for the services you provide.

1. Make Communication a Priority – The first thing that you can do to ensure you get paid faster is to make sure everyone, both inside and outside your practice, is on the same page.For your staff:
   • Ensure everyone involved in the billing process understands their role and how to carry out their responsibilities.
   • Detail your procedure and if needed, do multiple training sessions.
   • Remove as much ambiguity from the process as possible, so your staff knows what to do.
   For your patients: help them understand their responsibilities. Detail what your policies are and have them acknowledge their awareness by signing before each appointment. If possible, secure prior authorization for whatever procedures you know will need to go to insurance. Similar to your staff, your goal should be to remove as much ambiguity as you can.
2. Collect at Time of Appointment – The fastest way to secure payment is to collect at their appointment time. When you patients check in, make sure to check for any necessary co-payments and collect them then and there. This is where detailing your payment policies can truly help you get paid faster.If there are any balances remaining after the appointment, make sure you have a procedure in place to collect what is due. Again, this is where proper communication is vital for getting paid for the services you provide.
3. Make it Easy for Patients to Pay – In today’s world of commerce, people have several different ways to pay for the goods and services they purchase. Make it easy for your patients to pay by giving them options, including check, cash, credit card, or a newer payment method like Apple Pay. The more options your patients have to pay, the easier it will be for them to do so. This will result in more patients paying at the time service is provided.
4. Review Your Billing and Coding Procedures – Having a clear set of procedures and policies surrounding your billing is essential to getting paid faster. As we detailed above, your staff and patients must know what is expected of them when it comes to billing.If your employees or patients are unsure of any part of the process or about which policies apply to them, this won’t happen. Take some time to review your procedures, so you and your staff are in lockstep. Update your policies and make them visible to detail what is expected from your patients.Make sure to periodically review these key documents to remain up to date on changes to the industry and make potential improvements when needed.
5. Consider Outsourcing Your Billing – If you do the above steps and still find yourself struggling to get paid on time, then you may want to consider outsourcing your billing.A billing company’s primary focus should be ensuring that you get paid faster. Hiring an outside billing company will end up saving you money in the long run by saving you time and hassle and allowing you to focus on other areas of your practice.

A steady stream of incoming revenue provides a reliable cash flow source thatfive will allow your practice to flourish and grow. The above steps will help you get paid faster for the services you provide and give you the security you need to ensure your practice thrives.