Cash flow is the lifeblood of any practice. Here are five tips to maximize your patient pay efforts and increase your cash flow. 1. Collect Money Quickly–Have your front desk staff become great at collecting co-pays from every patient. $20 or $30 doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but it adds up quickly. Patients know that most practices won’t do anything to collect on those small balances. These balances end up hanging out there until the patient comes in again or the balance is written off.
2. Make Invoicing a Priority- Invoice as soon as the work is complete. The longer you wait, the longer you put your balance at risk.
3. Follow-Up! Be the Squeaky Wheel- As soon as a statement is past due, make a courtesy call. That means a bill due on day 30 should be contacted on day 31. Following-up early puts you near the top of their bills and most importantly, quickly identifies patients who need to be moved to the next phase of A/R management.
4. Know when to fold ’em… Know the true price of what it costs to send out each patient statement. Identify the point when continued billing by the practice starts to cost the practice money.
5. Use a third Party sooner- If you have asked for your money more than 3-4 times and have not been paid, you probably won’t be paid if you continue to do the same things. Third party contact gets results.
Jeff Smolen represents GreenFlag Profit Recovery by Transworld
Systems, which provides A/R solutions to medical practices, clinics
and hospitals. Jeff can be reached at 313 -617-7360 or
jeff.smolen@transworldsystems.com .
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