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Beware of the Money Drainers !
Money is had to come by. As pressure mounts on small practices to stay in business without drowning from financial losses. It is important for small and solo physician practices to identify where they lose money.
Unfair reimbursement cuts and onus on offering higher quality of care, have added to the big troubles small practices face. Even as you device new strategies to improve the collections of your practice, it is more than likely you are losing money down the drain.
Sticking to middle of the Road Coding ?
A small sized medical practice cannot afford to hire smart lawyers straight out of a Grisham novel. Having to cough up money for upcoding penalties is the worst nightmare of small practice owners.
What is the safe way out? Downcoding! Most practices resort under the relative safety of downcoding. But the fact remains that leaving money on the table can be a costly mistake. According to a study published in Medical Economics downcoding can cost a single doctor 40,000$ annually!
Insurance plans, and fee schedules, that are miserly…
You bill and code perfectly, but why is it you still find it difficult to make ends meet ? It could be because of a poorly reimbursing insurance plan. If your insurer pays you 25% less than normal you will have to see 40% more patients, to make up for the loss.
Where is the Doctor ?
Probably learning the ropes of working with an EMR! Or, trying to make sense of the, latest CMS update. Compliance and regulatory pressures mean physicians see fewer patients. And fewer patients mean lesser revenue. Loss of productivity is the major threat to the survival of small practices.
A few ways to Sail through Reimbursement Storms !
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One way to prevent undercoding from eating its way into your profits is to conduct regular billing compliance audits.
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Educate billing staff that coding level 3 for a service that demands level 4 is not just a lost opportunity, but plain laziness.
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Update fee schedules annually. If you are good with numbers do it on your own or hire a consultant.
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Advice your patients to switch to better insurance plans.
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To increase productivity and see more patients, consider outsourcing billing and administrative tasks.
Opportunity of Building a Niche Market !
While everybody gravitates towards partnering with, or, becoming salaried employees, it is going to open a small niche market at the other end. That’s how economics works! It is not the time for small practices to back down but to scale up and work towards healthier practices !
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