Four Critical Problems of an Inefficient Charge Entry Process or Incorrect Procedure Codes

Maintaining a positive cash flow is critical to your practice. A key element in accomplishing this is to make sure that your staff efficiently and accurately enters each procedure or item that you provide on every single claim that you submit.

Your billable procedures are entered as codes. Those codes are each associated with your corresponding charge amount. Those procedure codes and charges provide your payers with the most critical information related to your payments – what you provided and how much you charge. When your charge entry codes are incorrect or charges are entered wrong, you can permanently lose money and valuable time is wasted cleaning up huge messes that only took a keystroke to create.

Incorrect coding and pricing can also cause you to make payer refunds and then have to resubmit the corrected claim. You may not be able to collect the corrected amount when your error was submitting at a lower charge. Too many coding errors may even result in you being audited or put on pre-payment review.

Rather than delivering quality patient care and efficiently and correctly being reimbursed, you will spend time that you will never get back identifying errors, addressing fixes and responding to document development requests. It’s that old saying, “If you didn’t have the time to do it right the first time, where will you find the time to do it again?”

If you are experiencing any or all of these 4 problems and you’re not absolutely clear as to why they are happening, you should determine whether they are the result of poor procedure coding and incorrect charge entry.

1. Rejected claims
2. Denied claims
3. Write-offs
4. Long payment times

Improper coding in the charge entry process results in long collection times and lower collection rates, which add up lost revenue and reduced profits.
 

Here is the good news:

 These problems can be eliminated from you practice!

By simply using the right, professional billing service you can streamline your charge entry process. They will provide professional oversight and see to it that your staff becomes proficient and efficient at claim coding, pricing and charge entry. When your charges are properly coded, your claims submission and collection process will work the way it is supposed to and your practice will be more profitable. A professional billing service knows how to get your claims submitted and paid. You are an expert at practicing medicine, not billing and collections. Put your billing needs in the hands of a professional billing company, so that you can focus your time and efforts on delivering quality patient care and positive medical outcomes.

By: David E. Sommerfeld  CEO

Learn how to make your practice’s charge capture and charge entry process more efficient with web-hosted medical billing services. For more information, call Bob Vincent at 772-494-2700, Ext 303. You have everything to learn and nothing to lose. No pressure/no obligation.

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