Streamlining Patient Collections: A Three-Step Guide to Managing Outstanding Accounts Receivables
I’ve switched Medical Billing Software of Medical Billing Companies: What do I do with the Patient Account Receivables without Internal Resources to Assist?
In today’s fast-evolving healthcare landscape, the process of billing and collections has grown increasingly complex. As practices and medical facilities face mounting administrative challenges, many are finding it necessary to reevaluate their current billing systems or companies. Whether you’re struggling with outdated software, inefficiencies, costs, or other issues, switching to a new billing solution can help improve cash flow and reduce overhead.
However, the transition process is daunting and the focus on which data to migrate (or what the new billing company will manage) may leave you with an unexpected problem; past due patient responsibility with no plan to recover or manage.
Sometimes, the most effective approach is to outsource collections to a professional agency that specializes in handling patient debt. Although most healthcare organizations recognize this as the best solution, they lack the resources to prepare and send the data necessary to place in collections.
This three-part blog series explores how outsourcing patient responsibility collections to a collection agency equipped with advanced technology can optimize your practice. By leveraging technology to streamline account data, collection agencies can help improve your cash flow, reduce administrative burdens, and safeguard your practice’s financial health.
Learn three steps to identifying the problem and recovering outstanding accounts receivable balances using outside resources. This three-part blog series will discuss the 3 steps to improving patient AR.
- Part One – Identify Outstanding Patient Accounts Receivable.
- Part Two – Extract Data.
- Part 3 – Recover through Patient Communication.
In part one, we will cover identifying outstanding patient accounts receivables.
Discovering the Problem: How much outstanding patient AR is there?
Outstanding patient accounts receivables (AR) can be “hiding” in many places. Ensure you have a good understanding of just how much is outstanding and where there is opportunity to recover.
- Collections Report. Most healthcare billing software have a standard collections report, showing all patient balances where the claim status is “collections.” They MAY have been sent to a healthcare debt collection agency for assistance. If there is no collection agency relationship, billing staff are likely using this status to place accounts considered “un-collectable” internally.
- Patient Responsibility Claim Status. Looking for a “Patient AR Summary” report or something similar. These reports place patient AR into buckets of time. Accounts older than 120-180 days are considered past due.
- Write offs. What happens at the end of the fiscal or calendar year with un-paid patient balances? Many billing companies write these balances off. However, they are still unpaid patient balances that patients should be made aware of.
- Insurance claim status with work complete. In many billing software workflows, moving to patient responsibility status is a manual effort. Review accounts with an insurance status; if the claim has an insurance payment and an adjustment, and there is a remaining balance, this is likely to be patient responsibility.
Once you have uncovered these accounts, the next step is to prepare data for collections placement. Learn more about this in Part Two of this series.
How can external resources help? Look for a healthcare technology company with experience in multiple billing software systems. Providing system access and an overview of the need to discover Patient AR will allow them to pull data to provide your team the “big picture” of how much Patient AR is outstanding.
If you are looking to partner with a collections agency for your practice, our team would love to talk to you, contact us here. As a nurse-owned and operated business, we have deep knowledge and understanding of patient care and can help you successfully recover your outstanding accounts receivables.
