Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing

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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
Importance of A/R Follow-up Medical billing is a
complicated process that requires special skills
in medical billing, coding, denial, and AR
management from experienced and well-trained
staff. The financial health and success of any
medical practice are dependent on maintaining
positive cash flow. In order to provide patient
care and cover expenses, its important that
payments are not delayed, lost, or denied. With
the understanding of billing guidelines and a
highly trained staff in place, youll start to
reap the benefits of high first-pass acceptance
rates and shorter billing cycles.
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
But even when everything goes right, some claims
will still be rejected or denied. The accounts
receivable (A/R) follow-up team in a healthcare
organization is responsible for looking after
such denied claims and reopening them to receive
rightful reimbursement from the insurance
carriers. Even though these claims could be held
up by simple mistakes, you will be surprised to
know that over half of denied or rejected claims
are never reworked. This means that the average
healthcare provider is leaving thousands of
unclaimed dollars on the table every year. In
this article, we just highlighted some key
benefits and overall importance of A/R follow-up
in medical billing.  Importance of A/R Follow-up
in Medical Billing Claim follow-up It may be
possible that all submitted claims are not
received by the insurance carrier or your billing
team might have missed submitting some claims.
One of the biggest delays in payment is resulting
from the claim not getting filed. In simpler
words, the claim wasnt received by the insurance
carrier.
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
This normally happens after paper claims get lost
or misplaced somewhere along the way before they
are delivered. To avoid such blunders, its wise
to send claims electronically if you can. In case
the claim has not been followed up on quickly, it
could be weeks or longer before your firm
realizes that the insurance firm never received
your claim. For paper claims, 10 business days
pass prior to calling the insurance firm to
confirm whether the claim was received. Managing
denied claims Depending on the denial reason,
you can actually send out a new claim request
with all required corrections before you even
receive the paper denial via mail. By contacting
the insurance firm and inquiring why they denied
your claim rather than waiting for your paper
denial explaining the reason through the mail,
the A/R team can make sure that all claims get
corrected as fast as possible. Resubmitting the
claims up to 7 days earlier instead of waiting
for the mail will undoubtedly reduce the
turnaround time for your payments.
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
Recover overdue payments A/R follow-ups assist
all nursing homes, physicians, hospitals, etc. in
recovering late payments without a hassle. When
the healthcare provider has a team that can
constantly involve itself in the claims follow-up
procedures, it becomes stress-free for the
healthcare provider to receive payments in a
timely manner. Your experienced, skilled team
will read the explanation of benefits and will
resubmit the claim with the required information
to receive overdue payments.  Provide financial
stability As discussed earlier, healthy cash
flow provides financial stability to the practice
and ensures the smooth functioning of day-to-day
activities. Healthcare providers need to
maintain a secure flow of revenue to cover
expenses and provide the needed patient care
services effectively the A/R department makes
sure that all this is taken care of. Manage
pending claims
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
At times, claims will be kept pending for a
certain duration of time as a result of
additional information needed for the respective
member. By executing a proper follow-up, the A/R
team can notify the member regarding the
situation so appropriate action can be taken and
the entire process is sped up again. Need
Assistance in Medical Billing? Even though A/R
follow-up is an important part of medical
billing, most practices wont be able to pay much
attention to it due to a lack of skilled
manpower. It requires skilled and experienced
manpower who have handled specialty-wise billing
and handled that specific insurance
carrier. Otherwise, such inexperienced and
unskilled A/R experts might be unable to handle
claim denials resulting in increased rejected
payments. In such cases, if hiring a skilled A/R
expert is not possible then you can always
outsource youre A/R function to the medical
billing company.
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
How MBC can Help you? Medical Billers and Coders
(MBC) is a leading medical billing company
providing complete revenue cycle services. At
MBC, one of your daily tasks is pursuing every
dollar owed by your practice. Our daily workflow
automates this task with a claim follow-up that
generates patient and payer collection worklists
so you can prioritize follow-up tasks, boost
collections, and reduce the days spent
in Accounts Receivable in A/R.
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Importance of A/R Follow-up in Medical Billing
Simplifying your medical billing process and
having an automated A/R follow-up process for
reworking denied claims is essential to the
success of any practice. To know more about our
A/R follow-up services, contact us
at info_at_medicalbillersandcoders.com or call us
at 888-357-3226. Read more Strategies for
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