After the recent healthcare reforms, medical billing firms and healthcare providers are finding it very tough to deal with new challenges. They are trying to move on with the new changes, but managing coding services is still a tough task for them. AR management in medical billing becomes a huge task when operating costs go up and patients with highly deductible healthcare plans increase.
Cash flow reduces when accounts receivable mount. Many US healthcare billing firms are facing this issue in the recent era. Today, we will throw some light on what is AR management and you can manage aging accounts receivable sensibly.
AR Management in Medical Billing
The money that healthcare billing firms or providers need to pay for the healthcare services offered to patients. After generating invoices, they are sent to patients or insurance companies for payment. Monitoring accounts receivable and ensuring that payments are received on time is extremely important.
In other words, the AR management process involves the identification of unpaid/denied claims, re-filling corrected claims, reducing AR days, removing aged AR, etc.
Manage Claim Denials
Finding the actual claim denial reason is a critical process in AR management. The team needs to be highly professional and skilled so that they can properly analyze the claim rejection reason, make claim corrections, and re-fill the claim without further delay. Moreover, it is necessary to analyze denial patterns for finding the right solution that can help avoid denials in the future.
Timely Follow-Up
Timely accounts receivable follow-up is essential to ensure continuous cash flow. The team should monitor all filed claims. Moreover, they should immediately execute the right action plan if insurance claims are unpaid within the thirty-day time limit.
Patient Follow-Up
Medical billing firms now rely more on patients instead of insurance companies after the self-pay introduction for payments. The AR staff needs to keep in touch with patients via emails or phone calls for the outstanding balance. It is important to avoid any delays in payments.
Periodical Reports and Audits
It is essential that the AR management team conduct audits periodically. It helps recognize areas where improvement can be made. Moreover, it will also help identify issues and measure risks. The AR staff submits audit reports that include pending payment reports, aging accounts receivable reports, etc. Therefore, there needs to be a highly skilled team of AR management in medical billing if providers need to ensure uninterrupted cash flow.
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