Tips to Improve Medical AR collection

Improving the financial health of medical practices is a task that consistently demands new strategies. Post-Covid, it has become even more difficult for healthcare providers to either maintain or improve their Accounts Receivable (AR) collections. Although the healthcare providers are continuously shifting toward a more care-based model that prioritizes patient care above everything else, they need to adopt effective payment collection methods to improve their revenue and eventually the financial stability. 

AR is an important aspect when it comes to improving collections. This article will discuss some of the ways through which health care professionals can improve their medical AR collections. 

Ways to improve medical AR collection

AR is the money that either patients or health insurance companies owe to the providers. Patient payments alone form a significant percentage of the total revenue of health care providers. Adapting the following ways may help you improve patient payments and reimbursements from insurance companies. 

• Track Outstanding Accounts

You should know how much your patients and health insurance companies owe you. Ask your staff to check the insurance eligibility of each patient before every visit to find when and how much amount in copay or deductibles is due. Inform your patients about the payments they need to pay during their visit. 

• A Follow-up plan

Keep a follow-up plan in place and ask your staff to establish effective communication with the patients. Create a weekly or monthly follow-up plan to remind patients about the payments they need to make. It certainly helps in improving collections. 

• Create Payment Plans

A smart way to increase your collections is to create payment plans as per your patients’ convenience so that they can pay in installments if they cannot pay in full. Create a document and get it signed by the patient for such plans.

• Offer Different Payment Options

Offering different payment options allow your patients to pay conveniently. Make it easy for patients to pay you by offering the following payment modes – cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, payments through the portal, website, etc. More payment options are likely to push patients to make payments in a format of their own choice thus making it easier for them. 

• Examine Claims 

You need to examine your claims before submitting them to an insurance company for accuracy and completeness. If claims with errors are being submitted, it will increase your AR. Make sure that you sit with your billing staff or experts to proofread your claims to remove any inconsistency in the information. 

• Make the most of Copay Collections

As a healthcare provider, you should target to collect 100% of copays and deductibles on a daily basis from patients. It’s your responsibility to inform patients about the payments they are liable for. Keep a track of your collections to ensure that your staff is collecting the required payments from patients. 

• A Reward program for your Billing staff

Although this step seems a little obvious, it works really well when it comes to implementation. Appreciate your billing staff for their work as it’s not an easy task to make reminder calls to patients to collect on past-due accounts. It’s a daunting task and you should be offering an incentive program to keep them motivated.

• Review your Collections

This is one of the most critical and obvious steps in the process – tracking and managing collections. If you cannot perform this task, it’s highly unlikely that you would be able to improve your collections. Make it a monthly task to review your collections during your financial meeting to observe the methods and processes that are working in your favour.

• Use an updated Medical Billing Software

In order to streamline your entire billing and collection process, having an updated billing software is a must. It allows you to track and manage all the bills. You can track past due bills and identify the patients who have failed payments. You might need to spend a considerable amount to purchase robust billing software but it will end up saving a lot more for you on internal billing resources as well as increase your collection rate.

• Outsource your Accounts Receivables (billing and collection services)

This is probably the solution to all your collection worries. You can simply choose to outsource billing services to professionals and they will take care of the entire billing and collection process so that you can focus on your practice without worrying about the revenue. The team of billing experts at CAPLINE SERVICES helps you achieve your financial goals by improving your AR collections.