Are You Aware of Bracket Creep?

While we are all focused on brackets these days with the NCAA Tournament in full sweep, let’s not forget about bracket creep.

Bracket Creep happens when receivables continue to age, moving from one period to another (ie: 31 days to 60) without improving.

If the accounts are getting older, the office may have a collection problem. The practice may not have a procedure for receivables collection or, if it does, the office staff may not be following it. It could also mean the office is understaffed and may need to hire someone to help with the billing and collection.

With a typical Medical Billing company, their patient collection efforts only go as far as issuing statements and generating “bad debt” reports of accounts that need to be turned over to collections. When accounts reach this point, we have found that less than 50% of these balances are ever recovered.

At Merem Healthcare Solutions, we work with our client partners to develop a Patient “Pre-Collections” strategy that is both aggressive and fair. We work with your front office staff and management to develop a Point-of-Service (POS) collections process to effectively collect more money up-front. Additionally, you will have the added support of a patient collections representative to your billing team. Our patient collections reps work diligently to collect patient balances in full or to make payment arrangements within 90 days and will help you identify and transmit delinquent accounts to a third-party collections agency of your choice.

Contact us for a free assessment of your patient AR to see how much money you could be leaving on the table!