Fee schedules are getting reduced every year. This means if you’re not on top of your patient collections at all times, revenue will be lost.

At MEREM Healthcare Solutions, one thing we know for sure is that poor revenue cycle management can be disastrous for a practice. The codes required for obtaining maximum revenue payout for billing medical claims are constantly changing, which brings numerous challenges for coders in an already busy practice. The coding and reimbursement landscape continues to change.

Impacts of High Deductible Health Plans

Due to patients having more responsibility for their healthcare costs, High-deductible health plans have a significant impact on your bottom line, from patient collections to bad debt.

You must also add in additional labor costs for the time required for your staff to focus on the collections side. Your billing process can no longer be something that gets a couple of hours of attention a day, it will constantly evolve and requires a dedicated staff or team to file and consistently work claims as well as dedicate additional time speaking with patients to discuss coverage and out-of-pocket costs.

Medical Billing and Coding – Let MEREM Health Help

With the increasing prevalence of High Deductible Health Plans and other aggressive patient cost-sharing models, it has never been more important to the financial health of your practice to have an efficient patient pre-collections program in place.

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. However,  we have found that when accounts reach this point, 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 dedicated medical billing team and a patient collections representative. 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 today to learn more about our Patient Pre-Collections Services.

Patient Pre-Collections Solutions

Our Patient Pre-Collections Solutions include:

• 20 hours of consultant time to develop your customized solution
• Statements and collection letter processing
• Managing payment plan list to ensure patients meet their terms
• Running auto-dial lists to notify patients with delinquent accounts
• Aggressive follow-up on past-due surgical balances
• Custom reports to aid in POS collection efforts
• Diligent management of third-party collections accounts
• Ongoing support from our patient collection reps and management consultants

Request an Assessment of your patient AR to see how much money you could be leaving on the table! Contact MEREM Health at (205) 329-7519 or click here to send us an email.  We look forward to hearing from you!

MEREM Health provides exceptional collections and medical billing, coding and credentialing services for specialty physician practices, urgent cares, and diagnostic imaging centers. Take advantage of our medical billing and coding expertise today!

The post Significant Impacts of HDHP on Your Medical Practice appeared first on MEREM Health.

Do you have a large amount of Medicare patients? Have you noticed your Medicare reimbursements have decreased or delayed? Are you seeing a large amount of Medicare denials and adjustments with no reimbursement for your services?

It is a very high possibility that you are correct when believing your Medicare reimbursement is lower than it should be. Medicare offers a wide range of plans and the majority of those are not the traditional red, white and blue Medicare. As an outsourced medical billing, coding and consulting company, MEREM Healthcare Solutions is seeing an increase in denials and loss of revenue for our clients due to this particular issue.

Areas most affected:

• Delayed or loss of revenue
• Authorizations, Pre-certifications, and Referrals
• Copays, deductibles and time of service money are not being collected
• Eligibility is inaccurate
• Increase in denials
• Improper billing
• Inaccurate records within the practice management system

What exactly is happening here and who is to blame?

Is the patient responsible? Is Medicare responsible?

What about your staff or your outsourced billing company?

Without proper training of your staff and/or outsourced billing company, your practice could be losing money. This is affecting the majority of providers, surgery centers, diagnostic centers, and much more across the United States. Simply put, time is money. Reimbursements that typically take weeks, end up taking months if you are lucky because multiple employees have to work an account’s error due to lack of training.

Another significant revenue loss in reimbursement revenue occurs when services are not being pre-authorized and a majority of payers will not allow you to obtain an authorization after services have been rendered.

This Medicare reimbursement and revenue loss is a trickle-down effect that starts with the patient and ends with payment posting, but almost always depends on the accuracy of your staff’s benefit verification and up-front collections practices.

MEREM Healthcare Solutions can help.

We know exactly what each of your staff should look for in this case. Your front desk and scheduling must be able to catch this prior to services being rendered so that providers can feel secure in being reimbursed for their services. This will bring you a much faster reimbursement, fewer write-offs and an increase in revenue.

Whether you need to improve your front office processes, improve clinic output, or need further coaching on your encounter documentation, this is where the MEREM Healthcare Solutions consulting team comes in to help your staff (and your practice) reach their maximum potential. We offer both on-site and remote training, so there is a solution to fit any size staff and any size budget. With Merem Healthcare Solutions on your side, we will help you identify areas of improvement and help you hold your staff accountable. This is just one of the ways MEREM goes above-and-beyond to act as your strategic partner towards our mutual goal of improving your revenue.

Contact MEREM Healthcare Solutions Today at (205) 329-7519 if you are observing significant reimbursement loss and would like to discuss your revenue improvement.

The post Have you noticed your Medicare reimbursements have decreased or delayed? appeared first on MEREM Health.