Refining Medical Accounts Receivable

You work hard for your money, and you deserve to get paid promptly. However, this is not always the case. Monitoring and managing your accounts receivable (AR) is imperative to your long-terms success, and the primary goal of managing your accounts receivable is to minimize the time between you sending out a claim and receiving payment for that claim. If it seems like your practice struggles to maintain a proper monitoring system for your AR, it might be time to engage the help of professional accounts receivable consultants.

At Horizon Office Technologies, we monitor your accounts receivable so that we can ensure you receive payment and track outstanding claims and the reasons that they have not yet been paid. Sometimes patients simply cannot make a payment on time, and sometimes a claim is denied or you’re waiting on your insurance reimbursement check.

Having an accounts receivable management protocol will help increase your collections, minimize reimbursement issues, and speed up your cash flow. Our team at Horizon Office Technologies will follow up on your claims to ensure they are paid promptly and that any issues that are holding up payment are resolved.

Important Aspects of Accounts Receivable:

• Contract negotiations: During your contract negotiations with insurance companies, it is important to make sure that your contracts include a prompt pay clause and other payment terms that ensure that you get paid the amount you deserve within a reasonable time period.
• Patient responsibility: Not all practices require payment at the time of service, and it is up to your office to decide if you will collect the patient-payment portion of the services you provide before or after the service. If a patient has a billing question, it is imperative that their question be answered and any appeals that they have be tended to transparently and promptly. Following up with patients who have outstanding bills is not always fun, but it is essential. Additionally, ensuring proper data collection when the patient first arrives at your office is crucial to ensuring your payment.
• Collections: If a patient is unable to or otherwise failed to pay a bill, then you may need to send them to collections before you can recieve your compensation. At Horizon Office Technologies, we have relationships with collections agencies that give you a discount.
• Charge capture: Charge capture is vital to proper coding and billing. Each member of your staff must clearly understand their role in documenting services and procedures in order to ensure proper medical coding.
• Claim submission: To receive payment on time, it is crucial that you bill in a consistent and timely manner. Generally, you should file your claim within 72 hours of the office-visit or procedure. If your billing staff cannot efficiently submit claims, you will likely not get paid in a timely manner. This also includes resubmitting claims in time— typically, you will have only 90 days to resubmit a denied claim.

It’s not enough to just submit clean claims. You also need an AR management strategy to recover funds and ensure prompt payment. At Horizon, we follow up on claims so you can spend more time practicing medicine.

Why Do Practices Choose Horizon as Their Accounts Receivable Consultants?

Our aim to is to optimize your accounts receivable processes. We work with you to assess your current process, develop a strategy that will speed up your collections, reduce billing errors, and thus maximize your practice’s profitability. We collect and analyze data, follow up with payers, and work with collections to ensure that all of your accounts receivable are fully taken care of.

At Horizon Office Technologies, we are a full-service billing company, offering high-touch services. As such, we have very interactive relationships with our clients. Since we are invested in the success of your business, we keep in constant contact through reports, as well as monthly and quarterly meetings. As with everything else, in our role as your accounts receivable consultants, your success is our priority.

To start making the accounts receivable process more productive and efficient for you and your staff, call us today at (224) 238-4200 or complete our secure information form.