Medical practices should take proactive steps to ensure they are not leaving money on the table due to claims processing errors, advised Naveen Sarabu, vice president of product for AdvancedMD, a cloud platform provider of integrated clinical, financial, patient engagement and reputation management applications for independent practices.
"Many medical practices receive claims denials by payers because they either do not verify patient health plan information before providing the service or make an error with coding or the input of patient information," he said.
"To overcome this challenge, practices should utilize technologies to automatically do eligibility checks at the appointment scheduling time or soon after and follow the mantra of 'doing it right the first time' by utilizing technology that supports claim-scrubbing and has the ability to apply multiple types of edits before a claim is submitted," he added.
Mr. Sarabu also recommended that medical practices have good patient collections, along with integrated credit card payments and other technology. He said this allows patients to more easily receive bill notifications (via text or email) and to pay online or via phone.
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