Delayed or inaccurate posting of payment can cause various problems for your medical practice. When that happens, your patients can lose faith in the system, forcing your staff to focus on tracking down missing payments, rather than helping patients. Accounting errors lengthen your revenue cycle and impede cash flow. Medical billing and coding franchise solutions by PracticeForces have helped many businesses adopt payment posting best practices.
Avoid these problems and improve the experience for all parties in the healthcare system by adhering to payment posting best practices. PracticeForces has been helping small businesses improve their business practices and increase the efficiency of their revenue cycle. PracticeForces recommends that medical practices like yours take the following steps to improve their payment posting policies.
Best Practice #1: Use a Payment Posting Checklist or Flowchart
Payment posting is not a single step. There are multiple forms of posting, such as processing insurance checks from ERAs, posting patient payments, and processing denials from the insurance company. Obtaining prior authorizations, for example, can reduce the risk of claim denial.
Make sure that everyone – doctors, other medical professionals, managers, clerical staff, and patients – are aware of the essential parts of the payment posting process:
- Verify insurance
- Enter data
- Submit claims
- Process payments or denials from insurance companies
Best Practice #2: Use Automation Tools
Payment processing poses can be tedious and time-consuming for your staff and a hurdle for your doctors and office managers. The need to complete paperwork accurately and manage patient payments takes time away from other crucial tasks such as answering patients’ calls, scheduling appointments, and stocking supplies.
Modern computer software can automate payment posting tasks, such as insurance verification and claims processing. Having automation software in place to cross-check different data entry fields, flag potential errors, and compile accurate payment posting statistics can reduce error rates and the burden on your clerical and administrative staff.
Best Practice #3: Train Staff to Use Technology Effectively
Along with automation software, training your staff to use software is vital before a medical practice can fully benefit from the tools. If your practice rolls out too many automation systems at once or does not provide adequate instruction, well-meaning staff could introduce errors due to misunderstandings or give up on trying to learn the new tools.
Best Practice #4: Double-Check Accuracy
Inaccuracies and failures to update records can lead to erroneous actions such as submitting flawed insurance claims, billing patients after they have already paid, or misplacing vital records.
Establish a clear process that includes error checking by staff and automated checks for inconsistencies. Reduce wasted time and resources that result from record-keeping errors and erroneous denials of claims for covered services.
Turn to PracticeForces for Smooth Payment Posting
PracticeForces is a growing company with a track record of helping medical practices manage their medical billing process more effectively. Learn about the pros and cons of electronic health records and payment posting best practices from PracticeForces by calling (727) 499-0351.
