With knee and hip replacement volumes on the rise, ASCs can take steps to lower these costs, Ms. Vail said in an article on AJMC Managed Markets Network.
Five strategies:
1. Collect patient history, insurance information and consent forms online before the patient arrives at the ASC.
2. Monitor costs for supplies such as surgical tubing, needles, sutures, suction tips, retractors and laparoscopic instruments to weed out unnecessary expenses.
3. Make sure physician documentation clearly states which implants were used and that accurate data is entered at the time of charge entry.
4. Consider utilizing predictive analytics to forecast implant needs and reduce overnight shipping costs.
5. Use up-to-date revenue cycle management tools to compare physicians’ implant costs and spot discrepancies between expected and received payments from insurers.
More articles on coding, billing and collections:
Medicare’s bundled payments overcompensate for post-surgical care, analysis says
DOJ collected $3B+ from healthcare fraud cases in 2019 — 5 cases involving ASCs
Outpatient coding worsened in 2019, inaccuracies uncovered in contest — 5 insights
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