The Urgent Care industry is growing in popularity. The ability to provide affordable, efficient, and quick medical care has been the driving force behind this expansion.
Between primary care clinics and emergency rooms, urgent care centers provide medical assistance. Patients receive prompt treatment at an affordable cost at urgent care centers, achieving a balance between the wait time at a primary care center and the cost of an emergency room visit.
On the one hand, the industry is thriving, but many clinics are complaining about shrinking profit margins. The inefficiencies in their revenue cycle management processes are to blame for a lot of this. The difficulties are numerous, ranging from technological shortcomings to a lack of billing and coding expertise. For these clinics to remain profitable, they must pay close attention to their revenue cycle performance.
Method For Front End Driven
When a patient walks into an Urgent Care, the revenue cycle begins. A well-organized front desk operation is both necessary and advantageous. Everything matters in terms of patient engagement, better collection percentages, lower collection costs, and overall profitability of the practice, from a warm welcome to the patient to verifying eligibility and collecting relevant co-pays before the visit. As a result, you’ll need a well-defined front-desk workflow. Before providing a new service to the patient, make sure you’ve collected any previous balances.
It’s critical that these employees are familiar with your scheduling and EMR systems because they’re the ones who start the billing process.
If you fine-tune your front-desk operations, you’ll see a 5-15 percent increase in revenue.
Maintain Your Insurance Contracts
Not being contracted means low patient volume, and not being contracted for the right fee means lost revenue, which is clearly not a good thing. Expect to sign contracts with every notable player in your market, but make sure you’re negotiating a fair contract that covers the entire scope of services provided.
Physicians’ documentation is incomplete
You provide excellent medical care to your patients; The difference in reimbursement for a lower level of E&M and a higher level of E&M can easily be $35-65 per instance due to not documenting in the right areas or incomplete documentation of the exam, ROS, and so on.
Periodic training for providers on how to use the EMR system effectively is also critical. Your billing service provider should collaborate closely with you to ensure that you are both compliant and efficient.
Charge Leakage Must Be Prevented
You don’t want to miss out on any charges. It can eat into your profit margins and cost you revenue.
Incomplete documentation is frequently the source of charge leakage. Make sure you document each service you provide thoroughly. X-rays, interpretation, labs, DME, Gait training, injections, and other charges are among the most frequently overlooked charges. These are all billable services, and failing to document even one of them is a waste of money.
Similarly, it is critical to pay attention to how additional services (other than E&M) are paid by payers. This analysis and relevant reporting should be available from your medical billing services.
Choosing the Best Revenue Cycle Management Service for Urgent Care
Patients benefit greatly from the services provided by urgent care centers across the country. They serve as a vital link between the primary care office and the emergency department.
If you run an urgent care center, make sure your staff is adaptable and responsive to new patients. Urgent care centers don’t typically see the same patients for long-term care, but rather serve as the first point of contact for a patient seeking treatment for an illness or injury. Despite the fact that urgent care centers cannot rely on repeat business, they must maintain consistent patient numbers in order to maintain their revenue.
Any urgent care facility that wants to maintain a consistent revenue stream can benefit from urgent care billing services. Revenue cycle management (RCM) is a crucial service that allows urgent care clinics to focus on patients while also allowing them to expand with confidence, knowing that their billing operations are in capable and experienced hands.
Providing Options for Responsible Expansion
An urgent care facility will need to expand over time, hiring new employees and upgrading both the facility and the treatment equipment. A good RCM service should give an urgent care center the tools it needs to expand responsibly, making the most of available revenue at any given time.
Improving the patient experience in the front office
Hiring an RCM firm can help an urgent care center consolidate its in-house staff and provide more robust front-office interactions.
These are just a few of the basic services that a reputable urgent care revenue cycle management firm should provide. Finally, the right healthcare revenue cycle management service can help you streamline your billing operations, increase revenue, and keep your urgent care business afloat.
