Maximizing Family Practice Revenue: Strategies That Work!

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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
Since family practices face many factors that
make getting paid more challenging, getting
proactive about billing procedures is more
important than ever. Being proactive and
preventing problems before they occur can help
your family practice maximize revenue, ensuring
youre adequately reimbursed so your practice can
continue providing quality patient care. Every
year, medical providers in the United States
leave over 100 billion dollars of uncollected
revenue due to billing errors, coding mistakes,
and failure to stay current on medical billing
rules. Heres a closer look at the top 5 medical
billing strategies you can use proactively to
maximize your family practice revenue. Contact
MBC today to speak with one of our specialists
about the benefits of outsourced Family Practice
Billing management. Top 5 Medical Billing
Strategies to Maximize Family Practice
Revenue 1. Review your scheduling practices You
may need to fine-tune the way your appointments
are scheduled. If appointments are booked in
standard 15-minute increments, you might spend
more time waiting for patients than you should.
Or if appointments are
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
all booked at the top of the hour, your patients
might be spending more time waiting for you than
they should. A modified-wave template schedules
two 15-minute appointments on the hour, one 15
minutes later, and another 30 minutes after the
hour. Typically, there is no appointment 45
minutes after the hour, which allows time for a
30-minute appointment, an extra work-in patient,
or time to return phone calls or catch up on
documentation. A modified-wave template also
helps ensure youre not behind schedule before
you begin. If you start seeing patients at 9 a.m.
and one doesnt arrive on time, chances are the
other patient with a 9 a.m. appointment will. It
would be best to consider whether your scheduler
gets the right visit type or patient in the right
appointment slot. For example, diabetes checks
may not require 30 minutes, especially if you
have systems to ensure that lab results are
available in the chart during the visit. Certain
patients will invariably consume the time of two
appointments book them accordingly. You can
optimize your scheduling procedures by enabling
accessible communication between your scheduler
and your clinical staff, for example, by closing
their desks. 2. Focus on being
efficient Improving efficiency is truly a game
of inches. There are many ways to do it, and none
are likely to result in
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
dramatic gains. Still, if they enable you to see
two additional patients a day together, the
effort can amount to a tremendous increase in
revenue. According to the research referenced
earlier, high-earning physicians work an average
of 56 hours a week, and low-earning physicians
work 51 hours a week. However, the high-earners
provide 38 more visits per week than their
low-earning counterparts. The high-earners arent
just working harder theyre working
smarter. Starting each morning with a 10-minute
meeting with critical clinical and office staff
members can save you valuable time later. The
purpose of the meeting is to look at the days
schedule, anticipate information needs or
exceptional circumstances that may arise during
the day, and plan accordingly to prevent
slowdowns. Check that lab results, reports from
other physicians, discharge paperwork, and so on
are in the chart. Identify patient visits that
might take longer than scheduled and make
adjustments. Talk with your scheduler about times
when you can see an extra patient. 3. Delegate
work Delegate work that doesnt require a
physicians license. Dont spend time on
patient-care-related tasks that dont need a
medical degree. Try to delegate as many
administrative tasks as possible while
understanding your practices operations well.
Dictating notes while youre still in the exam
room with the patient can improve your
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
efficiency. Your memory is fresh, and the details
are precise. Dictating in the patients presence
is also a good way of validating the patients
concerns, cementing your treatment alliance with
the patient, and reiterating your instructions.
This takes some getting used to, which may not be
appropriate in every case. You dont have to
leave your exam room frequently if you are
delegating your work. You can be most productive
when you dont have to leave the exam room to
obtain the necessary information or supplies. You
can avoid interruptions during patient visits by
stocking exam rooms appropriately and
implementing daily huddles as described earlier.
If 10 times a day you leave the exam room for two
minutes to fetch a form or an instrument that you
need, youve squandered the equivalent of an
entire patient visit. 4. Keep multiple revenue
streams Its essential to realize the extent to
which your scope of practice drives your revenue
stream and to weigh decisions that would narrow
it carefully. Whether performing a specific
office procedure, seeing nursing home patients,
doing obstetrics, or taking care of patients in
the hospital, think of each service as a
tributary to your practices revenue stream. Give
up one of these services, and youre cutting off
part of your revenue stream, which can be
difficult to reclaim, particularly once
procedural skills or privileges have lapsed.
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
Try to do every procedure you can comfortably and
confidently perform in your setting skin
procedures, joint aspirations and injections,
trigger point injections, tendon, and tendon
sheath injections, simple- and moderate-complexity
fracture care, treadmill stress tests, and an
array of hospital procedures. This scope wont
make sense in every practice if you do procedures
that your colleagues dont and invite them to
refer their patients to you. 5. Track
performance and find areas where you can
improve Since the healthcare landscape continues
to change, your family practice needs to change
along with it to improve efficiency and maximize
revenue. One of the best strategies to keep
revenue flowing is to look for ways to enhance
your billing procedures. This includes staying
informed about changes to medical billing rules
and changes in billing and coding protocols,
identifying any problem accounts, and tracking
pending accounts receivable to see how your
family practices revenue cycle is
performing. In some cases, outsourcing your
billing and coding is one of the best things you
can do to improve your practices billing and
coding procedures to maximize revenue. Billing
and coding rules, standards, and procedures are
constantly changing, making it easy to miss small
details that result in underpayments, denials,
and rejections that cost your family practice
money and time.
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
Outsourcing to a company like Medical Billers and
Coders (MBC) offers an effective way to regain
control over billing and increase revenue. We
provide dedicated specialists who are highly
trained, and we submit claims quickly, allowing
your practice to spend more time focusing on your
patients. If youre interested in outsourcing
your medical billing and coding to improve your
practices revenue, contact us at 888-357-3226 to
learn how we can help you. FAQs 1. Why is
proactive billing critical for family
practices? Proactive billing helps prevent
issues before they arise, ensuring that your
practice is reimbursed correctly and can continue
providing quality patient care. 2. How can
scheduling improvements increase
revenue? Optimizing scheduling reduces patient
wait times and allows for more efficient
appointment flow, which can help see more
patients each day and boost revenue.
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Maximizing Family Practice Revenue by
Implementing These Strategies
3. What tasks should family practice physicians
delegate? Physicians should delegate
administrative tasks and non-medical duties to
staff, allowing them to focus on patient care and
improve overall practice efficiency. 4. Why is
it essential to maintain multiple revenue
streams? Offering a variety of procedures and
services helps diversify revenue, ensure a steady
income, and reduce dependency on any single
service. 5. How can outsourcing billing benefit
family practices? Outsourcing to a specialized
billing company like Medical Billers and Coders
(MBC) ensures accurate, timely billing, minimizes
denials, and boosts revenue.