The Key to a Smooth Front Office Workflow

Paperwork. It can be the last thing you want to deal with during (or after) a busy day serving patients.  At Rev-Ignition our revenue cycle management (RCM) services and software can help you avoid the most common mistakes healthcare practices make by simplifying your record keeping – helping you to build significant revenue. Contact us to find out more.

Front Office Workflow: Start at First Contact

The key to managing billing and cash flow effectively begins at the front office. First contact and registration are where the tracking begins. As soon as a patient calls you, your front office staff should be inquiring about payment. Getting your front office staff on the same page will eliminate any problems down the road and instill a culture of expecting payment. Some great tactics include:

• Asking for billing information while scheduling the first appointment
• Directing the patient to your website for online registration
• Asking for the co-pay before seeing the patient

Our software and RCM systems help you to verify benefits and track if patients have or have not met their deductible – or in the case of Medicare patients, how much of their cap/threshold has been used. A human face to these interactions is paramount. Explore and explain all monetary costs with your patients and ask them to sign a benefit verification form.

Remember to inform them that it is only a quote and not a guarantee of payment from the insurance company. Giving your front end staff the correct RCM tools to track this info – coupled with warm and plain explanations – means satisfied (and at ease) patients. This is the front end face of dynamic and trackable workflow. Everyone wins.

Watch Out for Co-Pays

Ideally, all private insurance patients will pay their co-pay at the time of service. As we do not live in an ideal world, what can you do to regain that money? Many patients are simply unaware that their insurance company’s reimbursement does not cover the full cost of care. We suggest minimizing this problem by explaining beforehand that they are in violation of their contract with their insurance company if they do not pay. As politely as possible – of course.

A good RCM tactic is to put policies in plain language writing. Perhaps add it to your admissions literature for new patients. Strict policies written into patients’ charts form a vital cog in the machine of front office workflow. When we are all on the same page and we know what is expected, it eliminates future struggles down the road. On average, a clinic that collects co-pays before treatment collect 90% of the time. A clinic that waits to bill for 30 days collects only 40% of the time.

Tracking Authorization is Extremely Important

With help from Rev-Ignition’s RCM services and software, your front office colleagues can utilize the power of automatic notifications. Because authorizations usually take a week or more to process from the payor, your office can run the risk of no compensation being paid if the dates do not match.  Train your front office staff to keep a detailed database of the insurance companies that do not accept retro-authorization requests, and you’ll be well on your way to operating within everybody’s timeline.

Rev-Ignition is an RCM that can help your front office maximize reimbursement and maintain an accurate and standardized workflow. Tracking trends helps to predict the future and maximizes revenue. Let’s begin with the workflow. Contact us at 1 (844) 297-9944 to see how we can help.