The more streamlined the financial processes are at your medical practice, the more time and attention your team can spend on diagnosing and healing patients. A financially strong medical organization does a better job at retaining talented employees, as they won’t have the same level of anxiety as they would if they worked at a facility that is not doing so well. Patients can tell the difference too, between thriving practices and those that could use some help in managing their revenue cycle.
This is where revenue cycle management software comes in. It helps you gain better control over claims and billing and will let you generate customized reports so you can stay on top of crucial data.
If you have been running into problems with your bottom line these days, you should know that revenue cycle management software can save your practice.
Avoiding Claims Denial
No matter how careful your team is, from time to time you can expect to see some denied claims caused by some kind of data entry error or other mistake. For more efficient use of their time, it’s important to select a revenue cycle management application that includes a feature for managing denied claims.
In this way, if one of your staffers makes a mistake when typing or clicking the mouse, the details of the error will appear and give them the opportunity to fix it on the spot. You can go over claims that look ripe for rejection as they occur and then after making a change and reviewing it for accuracy, you can submit the corrected claim and get reimbursed faster.
Converting ICD-10 Codes
The current deadline for switching from the International Classification of Diseases code version 9 to ICD-10 is almost upon us (October 1, 2015!). Assuming that the government sticks by this final deadline for the mandated change, you will want to use revenue cycle management software that is ready for ICD-10.
This means that it will include a built-in converter to switch codes from version 9 to version 10, quickly and efficiently. Double-check with your software provider that it will offer this capability if it does not already do so.
Tracking Unpaid Claims
A major concern of your billing manager is the number of unpaid claims coming out of your office, and it takes some effort to stay on top of them.
Your RCM software ideally will include options for keeping track of claims and will make it easy to generate reports on this topic to give you a warning when payments are still forthcoming.
Although your medical practice was founded primarily to help keep your community safe and healthy and to let your professionals exercise their skills to diagnose and treat patients, you still must pay attention to the financial rewards. By implementing a revenue cycle management software solution, you can rest assured that you’re doing what’s needed to reduce rejected claims and speed up the cash flow. After all, a medical practice needs to be strong and financially healthy in order to give the best care to its patients.
Key Takeaway
- A medical practice must pay as much attention to the financial side of things as it does to the work it does in taking care of patients.
- You will want to take advantage of the latest in revenue cycle management software to optimize cash flow.
- Use RCM software to reduce the number of denied claims, saving you a great deal of time and effort.
- With your RCM application, you should be able to use the new ICD-10 codes by the government’s required deadline of October 1, 2015 to switch over from ICD-9.
- Get a better handle on your revenue cycle by using the software to track all unpaid claims.
