Ophthalmology is a branch in medicine which deals with diagnosis and treatment of eye disordered or illness. A surgeon who is trained in this field is known as ophthalmologist. The procedures they perform include optic nerve problems, eye infections, cataracts and other conditions which affect the eye.
It is fact that doctors are overworked so this begs the question – is it advisable to put them under administrative pressure as well? This also arises a dilemma of keeping the practice afloat. Rendering services and not getting rightly reimbursed, can be detrimental for those who are involved in delivering those services. Such cases can have a high impact on job satisfaction levels of physicians and medical staff involved. It is just as important to maintain the financial health of the practice.
Understanding Ophthalmology Backlog
Is your practice leaving hard earned revenue on the table? Between unpaid medical claims and outstanding patient balances, US physicians are leaving $125 billion on the table each year. Accounts receivables is the amount you are owed for the services you have performed and billed. A high A/R amount means that a sizable portion of your labour is going underpaid. To make sure you are getting paid on time and consistently, keep your A/R as low as you can. You can learn a lot about the state of your ophthalmic revenue cycle by taking the time to comprehend your accounts receivable (A/R) and how it changes over time.
How to Reduce A/R days?
- Start with the lowest – Sort unpaid balances and claims according to which can be recovered the quickest. Start with medical claims that have simpler problems that can be readily resolved by your team, such as erroneous patient or provider information, requests for further supporting evidence, or incorrect codes.
- Manage by payer – Keep an eye out for patterns in underpaid claims, such as those involving particular refused or excluded codes or practises requiring prior authorization or referral paperwork. Additionally, you can expedite your efforts by speaking with the insurance payer representative about several open medical claims at once.
- Focus on large outstanding amounts – You should be mindful that greater sums could be more challenging to get, particularly if they belong to the patient. You might want to think about setting up a payment plan with the patient for bigger patient debt or perhaps taking partial payment.
To assist manage the cash flow of your practise, you must continually measure, analyse, and work your accounts receivable (A/R), which is constantly changing. In order to prevent it from growing, you should ideally analyse your collection backlog every week and conduct a deep dive into your A/R every month. A sound medical billing process ensures the hospital stays profitable while also making sure that patients are treated with continued care. It creates a revenue cycle which is achievable and continues to thrive.
When it comes to medical billing which is time consuming and very tedious, it can be handed over to a medical billing company or a medical billing agency so that it can be taken care of by the third party organisation.
The billing must be done accurately, if not then an increase in errors and claim denials can reduce the revenue for the medical facility and this will have a direct impact on reimbursements. This is why accurate billing using the right codes is essential to ensure protection of the overall revenue and job satisfaction of staff involved.
Our staff at Info Hub Consultancy Services (ICS), a medical billing company, can successfully secure maximum profits for physicians, and enable them to a focus on their practises. Our knowledge is based on expert, technical, and international hospital and healthcare practise billing for ophthalmology, helping you reduce backlogs with help of A/R callers, and grow your practice.
