Winter months are notorious for freezing your practice revenue. Here are some tips on the Inga Ellzey Billing Companies billing strategies and how we unfreeze carrier money.
- Follow the claims!
Does your staff follow the status of claims closely? Do they know how to monitor the claims to save time while being efficient? Ask your biller for a report! You need to know how many claims you have in your system, how many claims are pending, and when claims are ready for release. Follow your claims! That’s where your revenue is!
- Resubmitting Denials
Insurance carriers love to deny claims; frequently for no reason at all. The longer you wait to refile the incorrectly denied claims, the longer you won’t get paid (or may never). Revenue, revenue, revenue! Do you know why the claim was denied? Are you following up with chart notes, authorizations and referrals or is your staff too busy with other duties? Capture that lost income by re-submitting denials when you get them; not weeks later or not at all.
- Days in AR!
Many Medicare Part B carriers as well as Advantage plans can have claims in the system for as long as 30-90 days. How often is your staff touching claims? Is your A.R. worked on a regular basis not just when the staff has time? Good claims can easily become lost revenue if they’re not worked. One more piece of advice – NOW is a great time to have your staff working the Accounts Receivables from A-Z, from $5.00 to $5,000.00. You’ll be amazed at how much of your profits can be captured.
- Timely Filing
Do you like writing off CPT codes? No one does. Don’t fall into the carrier trap in which timely limits have been exceeded. That’s abandoned revenue for you! Another issue is not writing off claims that will never be paid. Not writing off non-payable claims reflects an inaccurate picture of how many outstanding claims there are and what is the total amount that is still collectable.
- Carrier Knowledge
Appeals are useless if they’re not properly resubmitted. Understanding Medicare’s policies and procedures can help billers tackle other carrier denials as well as most carriers follow the Medicare guidelines. Carrier knowledge may not seem important, but when it comes to your revenue, correcting claims and sending them back for re-processing is crucial. You don’t need to wait 30 days or more for another denial that can be fixed the first time around if you submit the information that is needed to get the denial reversed.
————————————————
As the owner of the oldest dermatology-specific billing service in the industry, I can honestly say that if you follow these steps, then a lot of your revenue concerns will be answered and the money will start to flow back into your practice.
Most dermatology practices don’t have enough staff to do it all. Your staff is busy with so many other billing-related tasks such as entering charges, posting payments, answering carriers requests for information, sending out patient statements, answering phone calls; the list goes on. Working the A.R. is time consuming and requires knowledge as many of the carriers have their own claims adjudication nuances. It’s the one billing task that everyone hates and is always done last.
Maybe it’s time you let The Inga Ellzey Billing Companies take over your billing. This is what we do! We don’t sell software or work with offshore entities. We have a reputation to uphold and we pride ourselves in providing ethical and quality work.
My proven dermatology-specific billing methods and processes are executed effectively and efficiently and have unparalleled results. (We perform 95% of the billing tasks in real time or within 72 hours.) The proof is in the numbers. We invite you to reach out and let us give you a quick analysis to show you how we can consistently collect between 95-99% of all your CPT codes in 21-26 days or less. Contact us via our website or give us a call about our dermatology billing services. A quick phone call can be the best decision you’ve ever made for the financial side of your practice. I’m waiting for your call – 1-800-318-3271.
