Business concerns in the healthcare sector may take precedence in deciding the viability of medical practice in the complex globe and failing economy of today. Many of today’s healthcare practitioners are concerned with the business side of healthcare, particularly with regard to medical billing and coding. This is one of the largest difficulties facing physicians today. The loop of invoicing for urgent care starts at the front door. You may improve your revenue and spend less on pricey collection procedures by establishing sound financial regulations that start at check-in.
The American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine estimates that up to 100 new urgent care facilities may open their doors each year. And high-deductible health plan-related coding and billing difficulties occur with every new clinic. Due to the complexity and intricacy of urgent care treatments, medical billing for walk-in clinics and urgent care facilities might be more difficult than for regular primary care.
It is now more difficult for walk-in clinics and urgent care centers to boost their revenue as a result of payer payment policies and coding changes. However, there are measures your practice can put into place to start generating revenue despite these barriers once you are aware of some of the difficulties your practice is facing.
Among the difficulties that walk-in clinics and urgent care centers are currently dealing with are the following:
Challenge #1: Prior Authorization –
Calling insurance companies to request pre-authorization for services can take up a lot of an urgent care clinic’s time.
Challenge #2: Patient Access –
Although the urgent care sector has developed much since its inception, concerns and difficulties around patient access still exist.
Challenge #3: Claims denials are one area of the revenue cycle management that all walk-in clinics and urgent care centers are concerned about. If they are not handled quickly, denied claims might prevent you from earning potential revenue in addition to lengthening the revenue cycle and disrupting cash flow.
Get end-to-end healthcare revenue cycle solutions to maximize your medical practice reimbursements.
Clinics frequently are unable to obtain the compensation they are due to the complexity of urgent care coding, billing, payer contracts, and compliance. Receiving payment shouldn’t be that difficult.
What causes complications?
- Billing mistakes
- failing to adhere to the laws and regulations governing medical billing
- Possibilities problems
- Errors in urgent care billing and coding
An urgent care facility requires a lot of effort to operate. Be proactive and watch out for these typical billing and coding errors to ensure that your clinic gets paid what it is due.
If you’re worried that your urgent care facility won’t get paid appropriately. It’s time to simplify billing and increase your profits!
Following the webinar, you will be in a position to:
- limiting room for error
- Feel more assured and increase upfront collections
- Improve the efficiency of your walk-in clinic billing procedures.
- Keep up with the most recent adjustments to payer requirements and urgent care codes.
- Maximize your practice’s timely payments
- Ensure transparency at every stage of the revenue cycle.
- Calculate the payment you receive for urgent care services.
Walk-in clinics are crucial to our healthcare system because they fill the gap between primary care physicians and emergency rooms. Its rising popularity and predicted value of $26 billion by 2023 are most likely due to this. You must comprehend the fundamentals and recognize the billing intricacies in order to optimize your processes for optimum profits if you want to demand your fair portion of the market.
Mistakes in urgent care billing you probably aren’t aware of:
Mistake 1: Bad contract negotiations or no contracts at all
By entering into contracts with payers, you formally request that they promote your urgent care facility as being in-network in their network directory and pay you according to the fee schedule you agreed upon. You won’t be allowed to accept any insurance if you don’t establish arrangements with payers in your region before your urgent care center opens. The patient volume you need to break even is nearly impossible to increase because of the urgent care billing error.
You won’t get paid much for the services you provide to patients if you negotiate low reimbursement rates with payers. The agreed-upon charges must be reasonable and take into account the range of services that your urgent care center offers.
Mistake 2: Failure to Verify Insurance
The failure to verify insurance is one of the main causes of medical claims being rejected. Insurance must always be verified by a practitioner each time services are rendered. Because it can change often, even for the most dependable patients. Services that are not allowed or covered by the plan, insurance that has expired or is no longer eligible. The use of all available benefits are some of the most frequent denials. Make sure staff is aware of the significance of validating each patient’s insurance, including effective dates, coverage duration, deductibles, and copayments, to avoid these problems. These tasks can be aided by software solutions, which also help the practice save time, money, and labour.
Mistake 3: Incorrect or incomplete patient data-
The occurrence of errors and inaccuracies is another very frequent cause of denials. During the patient registration process, this frequently occurs. The tiniest details might result in a claim being refused or a payment being delayed, whether it be a misspelled name, an erroneous date of birth, or an invalid diagnosis code. Ask the front desk staff to confirm these details to make sure payment is made correctly the first time. When a patient calls for an appointment, encourage them to call the insurance company to confirm coverage and benefits.
Mistake 4:Using the incorrect procedure or diagnosis codes
Coding errors happen when an insurance claim is submitted with the wrong diagnosis or procedure code. This could occur for a variety of reasons, including poor handwriting or the use of antiquated codes. Making the transition to an electronic health record from a paper-based one is one method to increase accuracy and decrease errors (EHR).
Mistake 5: Duplicate Billing
Duplicate billing occurs when a procedure, test, or therapy is billed more than once. A clinic may bill for the incorrect service or a service that was not provided, for instance. If a patient’s test is canceled but it was never deleted from their account. These blunders are typically seen as mistakes or human error. A practice should do routine chart audits to make sure all claims have been properly billed in order to avoid this from happening.
Mistake 6: Upcoding or Unbundling
Upcoding refers to billing for a greater level of service or operation than was actually rendered in order to achieve a higher reimbursement rate. Unbundling is the practice of separately billing for operations that are typically invoiced as a single payment. Both of these instances of healthcare fraud are punishable by severe fines or even federal prison.
Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) report claims that higher performing medical groups typically have a 4% denial rate. Despite the fact that billing errors are widespread in the medical sector. Set a practice-wide objective and motivate everyone on staff to contribute to avoiding and preventing these pricey mistakes and oversights.
When you’re ill or hurt, you want to feel better and get help as soon as possible. Even if it isn’t always possible to receive rapid care, urgent care facilities typically provide treatment considerably more quickly than emergency rooms. However, there are several approaches you may take to cut down on the amount of time you spend waiting.
Conclusion
Walk-in clinics like urgent care, FQHC, and RHC are crucial to our healthcare system. Because they fill the gap between primary care physicians and emergency rooms. Its rising popularity and predicted value of $26 billion by 2023 are most likely due to this. You must comprehend the fundamentals and recognize the billing intricacies in order to optimize your processes for optimum profits if you want to demand your fair portion of the market.
