Revenue | Getting Started with Billing Software
Prepare for Launch!
Shannon and Teresa make final preparations to dive into their bestPT adventure together
As Shannon sipped her coffee and checked her email, Teresa peeked her head into the doorway and asked, “Are you ready?”
Shannon smiled and said, “I’m not sure, but let’s go ahead anyway.”
Teresa dialed the phone number for Tom, their bestPT coach. After a couple of rings, Tom picked up on the other end.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “today’s the big day!”
“Hello, Tom,” laughed Shannon. “It sure is. And I think we’re finally ready.”
“Then let’s get started we’re going to talk about the features of bestPT that will be most useful for your practice and offer that final bit of reassurance that you’re doing the right thing,” Tom said. They don’t call me the King of Practice Success Coaching for nothing!”
“OK Tom, we’re ready,” said Shannon. “Let’s go through this one last time.”
“Let’s start with the ‘why’ of the Billing Stats Report, and relate it to some of the challenges you may be experiencing in your practice,” Tom said. “You’e doing pretty well financially but have you ever experienced any sudden drop-offs in revenue that you couldn’t easily explain?”
Teresa and Shannon looked at each other and could remember several occasions when that was the case. Just a few months ago they had seen a significant and disturbing reduction in revenue and it had taken weeks of going through billing records, manually, to learn that Tana had been writing the wrong billing code on a number of her patient files. Every single one of those claims was delayed or denied outright. They were still trying to get some of the accounts sorted out.
“Yes, we’ve found it very difficult to troubleshoot issues with reimbursements,” admitted Teresa. “And it’s not always the insurance companies fault, getting even one number wrong in the coding or forgetting to include important documentation can really impact our success in collecting what we’re owed.”
“Exactly, it’s about achieving billing compliance AND payer compliance,” Tom said. “But it’s important to recognize that the insurance companies are not going to give you a step-by-step reporting on the progress of your claims, it’s better for them if you’re not able to stay on top of the process.
“I’m sure I’ve mentioned to you before that the chance of getting paid on a claim decreases by 1 percent with each passing day,” he continued. “That 1 percent adds up really quickly when you’re talking about an entire practice’s worth of patients and numerous claims.”
Shannon and Teresa both had to swallow hard at the thought of the tens of thousands of dollars they had lost due to reimbursement issues.
“It really is amazing the detail you can get,” Tom said. “The reports are customizable to your particular needs and will tell you where problems are whether on your end or the insurance company. Perhaps there are two codes on a claim that don’t quite go together, or a clinician forgot to include some demographic information in the claim or maybe an insurance company is consistently underpaying certain CPT codes, or pushing the boundaries of its accounts receivable window. You can’t fix problems until you know what they are!”
“That’s true,” said Shannon. “I definitely don’t envy Teresa she’s been an incredible investigator when it comes to solving cash flow mysteries but the time she has needed to dedicate to these investigations has definitely taken crucial time away from other office management needs.
“If the roots of billing problems were easy to find, we’d be able to deal with them quickly and decisively,” said Teresa. “You know how I love to have a plan!” Shannon nodded and smiled.
“And it’s not just insurance companies,” Tom said. “You can stay on top of private payers, as well, and make sure that your patients are on track with visits and billing.”
“That would be really helpful,” said Teresa. “We’ve had several patients who were significantly behind and once we figured out where their accounts stood, it was a real financial hardship for them to try and catch up all at once.”
“But it’s not all about reimbursements what’s great about bestPT is that it provides you with a checklist for all of your performance indicators, such as unbilled visits, patient visits, no shows, unfinished claims, or any other success measures you’d like to track,” said Tom.
“Another great feature is the radar chart, which allows you to see certain areas within your practice where attention may be needed,” he continued. “You can set parameters, such as new patient numbers, so that you will know if you’re not meeting your goals. Once you’ve set the desired parameters for a number of performance indicators within your practice, then you won’t need to refer to the Billing Statistics Report unless the radar indicates there is a problem with performance. Between the radar and the Billing Statistics Report, you are going to be firmly in control of your practice’s financial health and performance.”
“This is incredible,” mused Shannon. “Being able to focus on building this practice instead of worrying about when reimbursement checks are going to arrive? I really didn’t think it was possible.”
“I know you’re still probably a little intimidated about getting started but let me offer this final testimonial: In the past three years, my clients have seen average revenue growth of over 186 percent, patient visit growth of over 141 percent, and an 86 percent increase in patient visit compliance,” Tom said. “Your patients will have more buy-in with regard to their own health care, you will have less administrative work to slog through, you will collect more money and best of all you will be able to spend more time with your patients.”
“Well, that’s what we’re all here for,” said Shannon. “Let’s do this!
Is bestPT the solution Shannon’s been looking for?
Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
Starting an entirely new way to manage your office and think about your business is extremely daunting. There’s no denying that. But in the long run if you want to spend more time with your patients, earn more money, have greater retention and have peace of mind that you have an entire team standing behind you then this is the RIGHT solution for you.
It is a huge challenges to track cash flow while juggling the other responsibilities of owning a practice, like patient care and compliant documentation. Luckily, as Shannon is finding out, bestPT has the tools to make monitoring revenue easy, so she can focus on the aspect of her Dream Practice that matter most.
Managing your practice; tracking patients, updating accounts, keeping an eye on your insurance charges and payments and managing claims, all this while treating patients is a very challenging task. Having BestPt will alleviate much of this for Shannon and will help her to focus on patient care and practice growth. The goal of every practitioner.
Before I joined the Vericle team as a coach, Like Shannon I had to back track and search for errors manually. Not only is this very frustrating but extremely time consuming. My greatest enjoyment as a coach is when I’m able to empower a practice owner or office manager with the tools within Vericle to make his or her job easier, so they can focus on patients. As Tom noted the Practice Health Monitor at a glance gives the office on overview of how they are performing, billing stat reports can be customized, payer allowed report for catching any insurance underpayments, Patient
Relationship Monitor for reduction of patient attrition. There are so many features and report that assist with practice growth and profitability; it would take me days to go
through them all. Each month I meet with my practice’s to drill into what important to them, so I can better assist with their growth.
While making a major change can be scary you don’t have to go it alone with bestPT. You will have a Coach and the entire bestPT team who is with you every step of the way guiding you and making sure that you are not alone on the island.
BestPT is the solution for Shannon’s practice if the main goal is to focus on Revenue, Retention, Growth and saving time for the practice. She will be able to focus more on patient care and let the system coordinate the functions of the practice.