Every medical practice has been suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic facing issues of reduced patient volumes and hence a reduction in the revenue stream. The good news is that there are certain steps that hospitals and practices can take to improve their cash flow post-pandemic. These strategies can be easily implemented to enhance the financial health of your healthcare organization. A recent poll revealed that 29% of adults are delaying their medical care due to COVID-19 fears, this reflects that practices are continuing to suffer due to the pandemic. Healthcare revenue is impacted by several factors such as patient insurance verification and denial management. In this article, we will share 5 practical and proactive tips to maintain and increase your cash flow.
5 Tips to Improve Practice Cash flow
- Double-check insurance status – Your staff members must verify the insurance status of patients before they receive healthcare services with your hospital or clinic. With the help of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) Software solutions, it’s simple to verify such information due to the automation of procedures. Whenever a patient calls your clinic for an appointment or any other information regarding the medication the staff member should ask about their insurance information so it can be updated in the records without any delay.
- Ask for the payment at the time of the service offered – It makes sense to ask for a payment from your patient when they receive a service. This will make sure to speed up the revenue collection process as reduce the opportunity cost of time and money spent by staff members to send invoices and payment reminders to patients for collection of payment.
- Send patient invoices as quickly as possible – Your staff members should be efficient when handling invoicing and billing. If you don’t send patient invoices at the right time then payments will be delayed. Using manual solutions or outdated medical software can also affect your staff’s performance. If you think you need a new and improved Billing Services EMR Software solution then you should go for it as it can facilitate your staff to generate accurate invoices. By speeding up billing tasks you can speed up your payment collection.
- Explain your credit policy before an appointment is booked – You need to explain to your patients about the credit policy before time, this means they should be well aware of what happens when they miss an appointment and don’t call to cancel their appointment on time. Your staff members should know the exact details of your credit policy so they can provide the right information to patients and avoid any misunderstanding.
- Outsourcing – To outsource revenue cycle management to third-party financial professionals helps your practice take care of end-to-end financial tasks efficiently. Since they are pro in what they do they will make sure your practice gets paid faster and you continue to care for your patients without any compromise.
Key Takeaways
Medical practices will be looking out for ways to boost their revenue once everyone starts getting vaccinated and things slowly get back to normal. The following tips mentioned above will help your practice financially thrive and grow. Improving medical cash flow is easier than you thought!
