The key to financial success for chiropractic practices that accept insurance lies in submitting accurate claims and receiving timely reimbursements. However, the current billing process is becoming so complicated, it usually takes weeks or even months to get claims reimbursed by insurance companies. Improving your billing practices and claim submission process will lead to faster claim submissions and boost your first-pass approval rate. Here are a few quick tips on how to manage your chiropractic billing, submit claims, post payments, and follow up on all of your insurance claims in an efficient manner.
1. Submit Your Claims At Least Once a Week
2. Post Your Payments At Least Once a Week
Payment posting is an integral part of the billing process. It provides a complete view on insurance payments in EOBs, payments from patients, and insurance checks from ERAs. Post payments at least once a week, so you or your staff can work on the outstanding claims promptly. You can bill the patient for the balance due in a timely manner. This ensures that your practice is paid more quickly and more accurately.
3. Do Not Delay in Posting Adjustments/Write-Offs
Without posting these, you will not get a clear picture on what you really are owed. You might see a large number like $35,000 in Accounts Receivable but in reality $25,000 out of which was just going to be written off anyways. So the true accounts receivable don’t become visible until all adjustments/write-offs are posted. Checking write-offs and adjustments against fee schedules and policies may also help you disclose errors in payments.
4. Keep a Track of Your Account Receivables
The process of chiropractic insurance billing does not end with the claim approval. You have to ensure that the correct claim amount is deposited in your account based on your contracts with insurances.As with any other business type, tracking Accounts Receivable (AR) days is essential to financial excellence. The term A/R refers to the outstanding amount owed to providers for issued treatments and services. It’s acceptable to have few claims that haven’t been reimbursed in 90 days but if you have a large number of claims that haven’t been reimbursed for over 90 days, there is a potential problem. This is the money you will potentially lose if you don’t follow-up on it immediately.
Here are some handy tips to keep a track of your account receivables:
- Less number of days in A/R represents greater efficiency and faster payment.
- Always separate A/R by insurance and patient balances.
- Determine various insurance payer types, and understand how their guidelines affect your accounts receivables.
- Keep tracking outstanding amount for each insurance payer.
- Check monthly reimbursement trends for each insurer.
- Closely monitor your AR days and amount and follow-up to ensure the owed amount is paid quickly.
- Follow the right chiropractic billing and coding practices to avoid denials.
5. Outsource Your Chiropractic Medical Billing
Many chiropractic practices are comfortable with handling their chiropractic insurance billing process in-house. But if you make over $50K per year, you should consider outsourcing your billing to experts who can take care of it for less than your hourly billing rate. This helps you focus your time on activities which will help grow your practice. Some billing companies charge a percentage of collections. The hourly rate of these companies comes out to about minimum wage! So it sometimes is a no-brainer. To learn more about how you can achieve long-term financial success with zHealth’s managed chiropractic billing services while providing top-notch patient care, contact us today. zHealth’s chiropractic billing services include coding review, denial management, payment posting, AR follow-up, and other services. Contact us to learn how leading practices have increased their revenue with our billing services.
6. Automate Your Billing Process
Complex and mind-numbingly repetitive billing tasks that can be easily automated using chiropractic billing software are a drag on your business. You or your billing staff might end up spending hours submitting claims that you could otherwise utilize on more patient-centric services. Using chiropractic billing software allows you to access medically necessary documentation for insurance claims, submit them, track their statuses, and post payments – everything in one place. With 24/7 access to chiropractic EHR and billing software and patient data, a variety of issues with claims can be avoided from the very beginning of the process.
- You can leverage the chiropractic billing software to avoid coding errors and send claims with just a few clicks.
- An integrated clearinghouse will scrub your claims before submission
- You can leverage the software to avoid coding errors and send claims with just a few clicks
- Readily track claims that have been paid and which require follow-up.
- You can run regular accounts receivable reports to identify outstanding claims.
- Your staff can separate accounts receivables by insurance and patient balances.
All in all, by using chiropractic insurance billing software, you will see a reduction in overhead and operational costs and an improvement in the speed of reimbursement of claims.
Conclusion
An efficient chiropractic medical billing process and the best chiropractic billing and coding practices can help you increase your practice revenue and streamline operations. Automating the billing process using chiropractic insurance billing software can make your billing and claims process quick, efficient, organized, and accurate. By following the above-mentioned ways to improve the chiropractic billing process, you can achieve long-term success while providing quality care your patients expect.
Any practice owner, especially those in small groups or solo practice, would do well to stay informed of billing guidelines and reimbursement policies. Audits will always occur, so don’t assume everything is fine just because you’re getting paid. If you are a practice owner and don’t have the time to perfect your revenue cycle management activities, we can help. With offices in Texas and Wyoming, Apex MedPro provides complete revenue cycle solutions. With our billing services, you will receive accurate insurance reimbursements from private and government payers. For more information about our medical specialty wise billing and coding services, please contact us at info@apexmedpro.com or call us at 877-333-1760 for immediate assistance.