1. Hire certified and experienced coders and billers. Certified and experienced coders are a good investment as they usually increase revenue by optimizing coding. This can make up for more than the difference in their salary. It’s important to employ billers and collectors with on-the-job experience. “Although billing courses and certification are important, a self-taught biller with experience is probably better than someone who only took a course,” says Caryl Serbin, president of Serbin Surgery Center Billing. “In order to remain on top of your accounts receivable, you need to have the best and the brightest.”
From: 7 Ways to Improve ASC Billing Operations
2. Perfect the pre-admission process. Daria Semanyshyn of Advanced Medical Practice Management recommends you prepare a form with a checklist of items needed to ensure coverage and proper billing. “Do not rely on corrections being made on the back end of the revenue cycle,” she says. If your billing team has all the proper information before the procedure, your ASC will enjoy quicker payments and no threat of denial due to untimely filing or missed appeal deadlines. This means attaining the necessary referrals and pre-certifications for the correct procedure and the correct date of services, always obtaining a copy of the patient’s insurance card and making sure your demographics sheet is completely and properly filled out each time the patient visits your ASC.
From: 12 Steps to a Healthy ASC A/R
3. Understand the A/R days statistic and report it accurately. According to Joe Zasa, co-founder and managing partner of ASD Management, days in A/R is sometimes misquoted because administrators don’t understand what the number is ¬—– or they’re coming up with unreasonable write-offs to pad the number and make it look lower. “The statistic can be manipulated,” he says. “An administrator can do so by writing everything off after 90 days or writing off denials. You don’t want to write-off anything after 90 days. You want to create a reasonable reserve broken out by aging of the A/R. This can be tested against historical averages to obtain a good estimate. For example, the actual amounts collected over 90 days may be 30 percent; thus, a reserve account should be set up to account for this.”
From: Truth Behind A/R Days: Why It’s the Most Important Statistic and Why Most ASCs Have It Wrong
4. Benchmark A/R statistics against other facilities. Many billing managers agree that benchmarking billing data against other facilities can help ensure your billing staff is collecting payment in a timely fashion. Here are four statistics on ASC accounts receivableA/R, according to data from the VMG Health Multi Specialty ASC Intellimarker 2010.
1. The mean gross accounts receivable A/R for ASCs was $1,421,000.
2. The net gross accounts receivableA/R for was $722,000.
3. The mean A/R net turnover was 11.12 days.
4. The mean A/R net days outstanding was 37 days.
5. Institute a policy for handling patients who struggle to pay. ASCs are seeing more and more patients who struggle to pay high out-of-pocket costs, meaning a policy for finacncial hardship is essential if ASCs plan to collect payment in full. According to Michael Orseno, revenue cycle director for Regent Surgical Health, the ASC’s policy should be applied to any patient claiming indigence, and include discounts based on the Federal Poverty Standards put out yearly by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“An alternative to patients who don’t qualify for charity care but are having difficulty paying their out-of-pocket costs is to offer financing through a third-party financing company,” says Mr. Orseno. “One such company, CareCredit, offers patients interest-free financing with six, twelve, and eighteen month plans. The cost to the facility is marginal, and is easily offset by savings in staff collection costs and time value of money. The center will receive payment in full, within two business days wired directly to their bank account.” He says in these situations, the financing company usually assumes all the risk, so the ASC doesn’t suffer if the patient defaults on the payment. In addition, the patient gets a longer period of time to pay their balance interest-free.
From: Maximizing the ASC Accounts Receivable Process
Read more on billing and coding:
–3 Resources Every Coder Should Use
