Physician's Practice - November 2008 - (Page 34)

BILLING compensation programs are notorious for making you jump through a gazillion hoops. An out-of-state insurer that’s two time zones away also comes with an increased hassle factor. “You don’t want to overburden one biller with all the hard payers and give another biller the easy ones,” says Bee. So how do you arrive at the right mix? Consultant Elizabeth Woodcock, a coauthor of “The Physician Billing Process,” suggests giving each payer a “relative difﬁculty” grade, with traditional Medicare being 1, more difﬁcult payers greater than 1, and less difﬁcult payers less than 1. Then calculate what percentage of claims each payer represents, and weight that percentage based on its difﬁculty grade. In other words, Payer X generates 10 percent of your claims, but because its difﬁculty grade is an aggravating 1.6, those claims create 16 percent of the practice’s work. If you have six billers, Payer X would be enough work for one of them. (“The Physician Billing Process” includes a detailed description of how to calculate a difﬁculty grade.) COLLECTING FROM PATIENTS learned. For years, its Web site could only accept credit cards. Now the group is switching to an online payment service from Galvanon that also accepts debit cards and electronic checks. That’s an important capability since debit cards and checks come with some health savings accounts. “This will expand the folks who pay online,” says the Iowa Clinic’s Beth McGinnis. These same features come with Galvanon-brand kiosks found in Iowa Clinic ofﬁces. McGinnis credits the plastic-swiping machines with garnering more copays and past-due balances. “One obstetrics-gynecology department used to collect about 40 percent of what was out there in copays and balances per month,” says McGinnis. “With the kiosk, it’s up to 60 percent.” Not every patient is comfortable doing business with a robot cashier, so the Iowa Clinic is also willing to take its money at the front desk instead. Tip: Have more than one credit-card reader if you’re processing a lot of patients at the same time. Bonus tip: Invest in a card reader with a built-in check scanner to convert a paper check into an electronic one, debiting the patient’s account that much faster. Invariably, you’ll encounter patients bereft of greenbacks, plastic, or checkbook at copay time. Establish a consistent policy on whether you’ll reschedule these patients or let them see the doctor and mail in their money later. If you choose the latter route, make it easy for patients to remember their responsibility by handing them a THE BENEFITS OF A WELL-DESIGNED BILL One reason some patients are not paying you in full and on time may be that your billing statement is inscrutable to laypersons. Patients are accustomed to getting reams of paper in the mail from you and from their insurer — much of it labeled “This is not a bill” — so it’s not surprising that they’re confused. Under the gun to collect more of their revenue from patients, practices need every tool available — basic and advanced — to streamline what is otherwise a very labor-intensive task. Liberating patient collections from paper is a good start. At the Web site of 80-doctor Physician Associates in Longwood, Fla., patients make credit card payments of roughly $180,000 a year, says Marko Grguric, the practice’s system analyst. While that’s still only 1.6 percent of total patient collections, it’s more than double what Physician Associates took in online in 2006. This up-and-coming technology for collections is available from connectivity ﬁrms Medem and Medfusion. Besides being convenient for patients, online payment speeds up cash ﬂow and reduces the number of bills you have to mail out, saving you time and money. Online payment technology is evolving, as the Iowa Clinic has 34 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | NOVEMBER 2008 A clear statement is not just patientfriendly; it’s more effective. The Medical Group Management Association compared “better performers” — practices that beat medians for certain measures such as total A/R over 120 days — with all other practices. As the numbers below demonstrate, better performers tend to include more key ﬁnancial data on their bills. I % Better performers with this feature I % All other practices WHAT SHOULD BE IN YOUR STATEMENT? 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% A/R Days Outstanding Balance Pending Insurance Contact Information for Patient Questions Credit Card Info for Payment Portion Owed by Patient Portion Owed by Insurance Payment Due Date For more help in designing a better bill, visit the Web site of The Patient Friendly Billing Project (www.hfma.org/library/revenue/PatientFriendlyBilling), a collaboration between the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the MGMA, the American Hospital Association, and other organizations. Source: Performance and Practices of Successful Medical Groups, 2007 Report Based on 2006 Data. Medical Group Management Association WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.hfma.org/library/revenue/PatientFriendlyBilling http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physician's Practice - November 2008

Physician's Practice - November 2008 Contents Death of Solo Practice Just a Myth Letters HSAy What? Noteworthy Finding Lost Revenue: The Search for Billing and Coding Gold Getting More: Our Annual Physician Compensation Survey ’Tis the Season to be Neutral Ask the Experts Evaluating Paperless Labs HR in a Box? The Guide Coding Third-Party Audits on the Rise Branding the Cash-Only Practice Intra-Office Tug-of-Wars Stickin‘ Up For Yourself Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physician's Practice - November 2008

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