Billing & Collections

Medical practices have been slow to embrace the "customer comes first" mentality that defines corporate America - an operational oversight they can no longer ignore.

Inflation can be both good and bad for a practice. Therefore, understanding the nature of inflation can save your practice money.

Times are tight for small and large practices alike. But there are ways to supplement your income without selling out. Here are 10 ways you can leverage your skills to boost your income.

Corporations know exactly what their costs are and how much they need to charge to make a profit. Do you?

As many third-party payers tighten their belts even further with restraints for prescription drug coverage, radiology services, specialty referrals, etc., we physicians are left at the end of the day spending even more time with filling out more forms, seeing less patients, and seeing our total costs increase even more as our overall efficiency decreases.

Opting for an in-house pharmacy or office dispensing can enable your practice to maintain higher profit margins, but before you jump onboard examine all the costs first.

Are you nearing contract negotiation time? Make sure you understand what you’re reading before you sign. Here’s a detailed analysis of what should and shouldn’t be in your next binding agreement.

The toughest payers to collect from are your own patients. Don't despair, there are things you can do to get paid.

Our 2010 Fee Schedule Survey indicates that with commercial payments narrowly keeping pace with Medicare, practices need to get paid more for the work already being done.

Today's practice managers must plan proactively for the new year - finding new ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies.

When patients demur over paying for care, don't be a soft touch - there are things you can do to collect

It may sound like a great idea, but there are lots of financial questions to consider first. Do your homework on cashing in before you cash out.

Honesty may be the best policy. But is complete truthfulness the compassionate course in every case? Here's what you need to know about the legal, ethical, and professional issues around withholding information from patients.

Do you have an emergency plan in place? You should. Our disaster-planning checklist gets you started.

Here are some simple things you can do to help boost your revenue.

Although the primary purpose of our profession is to help heal and maintain the health of our patients, we are still business owners with salaries, taxes, and operating expenses to pay. This often means that we have to find ways to generate additional revenue, which raises the question, “Will offering ancillary services improve the profits in my practice?” They very well could.

Happy but worried, American physicians are sorting through the many changes their profession is seeing.

Charitable efforts in your office

Like most administrators, your education and experience have given you all the tools you need to help your practice succeed - Not that you’ll get the chance to prove it. When you find that your tasks are overwhelming your projects, that’s when it’s time to hire an assistant.

How good are your key accounts receivable processes? Do you even know what to measure? Find out how you are doing by entering key data from your practice and comparing your key measurements to industry benchmarks.

Here are the fourteen key measurements you need to make -- about once a quarter -- to measure your practice's financial health. We've made it easy for you. Just enter some information; we'll do the math.

CMS has released its proposed changes. Not sure how it will impact you? Have a gander at this. It'll give you what you need to prepare. We took it straight from the horse's mouth, straight from the proposed regulations.

Base your fee schedule on the Relative Value Unit (RVU) scale. We'll show you how -- and help you with the math.

Abstracted with permission from Chapter 4 of The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker. This chapter summarizes the principles of lean manufacturing, now being used in medical practices. Order the book at www.amazon.com.

This simple work sheet will let you compare your payers' reimbursement for specific procedure with your costs for each procedure. If you're spending more to provide a service than you're making for it, then it's time to address the problem.

Use this easy calculator to find out which of your payers are worth your efforts. By comparing the percentage of revenue to the percentage of patient encounters for each of your payers, you can tell at a glance which plans are the poor performers.

This is the first in a series of letters to use for patient collections.

Let new patients know about your policies from the get go. Follow these guidelines.

Get the full results of our latest reimbursement and charge schedule survey or read our analysis of the results.

Use this tool to see how Medicare's new fee schedule will impact your practice. This tool helps you translate Medicare's RVUs into dollars.