One of the biggest issues plaguing healthcare providers is implementing the best billing practices and receiving full, on-time payment from patients. The need to improve billing practices is more important than ever, with roughly 30% of healthcare revenue being paid by patients.
Because the stakes are high, many healthcare providers turn to bill companies to handle and improve their billing and collections practices. The medical billing staff at ECLAT Health Solutions are dedicated to helping our clients improve their billing and collections practices to foster a healthier revenue cycle in the utmost professional manner. While many medical billing service companies frequently call and hound customers for payment, ECLAT understands that these conversations require professionalism, discretion, and compassion. We never harass customers and strive to make paying as easy as possible for them. Furthermore, we strive to meet our client's financial goals and billing needs and recommend actions that will help them improve areas other than patient payment.
Allow us to provide some insight into why a transparent, cooperative relationship between a billing company and a provider is so crucial:
1. More On-Time, Complete Payments
With the increase of financial accountability and burden for patients, having a cooperative, transparent relationship between the billing company and healthcare provider will help boost on-time payments. Of course, patients not paying their bills on time means less revenue for a provider, but an added strain is the time and money it can take for a provider to pursue a collections battle. Therefore, when a patient does not pay on time, it is usually not viable for a facility to take legal action, and they may never see that revenue.
A billing company like ECLAT will assess the current billing and collections practices and determine where the provider can improve to ensure on-time payments to prevent these errors. For example, if a provider does not currently have staff explain a patient’s charges directly with them, this patient may feel overwhelmed by the charge or uncertain of how to pay, and therefore may pay late, if at all. A billing company can provide this crucial conversation (or train the provider’s administrative staff to do so) and help encourage patients to pay on time—and pay in full, too.
ECLAT Health Solutions is your trusted partner for ensuring your billing and collections practices translate to more on-time payments. We offer EFT/ERA enrollment to our clients, and our billing staff post and reconcile ERA/EOB/Denials to the PMS every day. For collections, we offer weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly follow up to remind your patients of their outstanding payments, and always practice compassion, discretion, and professionalism in these conversations. We work to earn our clients the revenue they need while keeping their patients satisfied and coming back for any necessary future treatments.
Read our post “3 Medical Billing Best Practices for Receiving More On-Time Payments” for payment collection tips.
2. Improved Billing Practices
Transparency between a billing company and provider is necessary for improving the provider’s end-to-end billing practices and revenue cycle, even beyond increasing the rate of on-time payments. Providers must have accessibility and accountability for their practice and partner with a billing company can establish this. Having a second set of experts review their medical coding practices translates not only to increased revenue from patient payments but more efficient, accurate processes that lead to fewer costly mistakes.
ECLAT Health Solutions billing expert Dorothy Lodato, who has years of experience with medical billing services, stated, “In many cases, a provider’s in-house staff receives payment regardless of how much money is collected from patients, while a billing company gets paid a percentage of the money collected.” Therefore, it is mutually beneficial for billing companies to be transparent with their clients and offer effective suggestions for improvement; the provider receives the revenue they need from patients, and so does the billing staff.
We work on a personal level with our clients to determine what is currently missing from their billing and collections processes. Our clients’ billing goals become our billing goals, and we always hold open communication with our clients to determine opportunities for improvement.
When it comes to improving billing practices, it is crucial that providers choose the right billing company for the job. Providers must partner with a billing company that promotes cooperation and transparency to best foster a healthy revenue cycle and see an increase in payments. ECLAT Health Solutions’ medical billing experts specialize in helping our clients remedy their current billing issues and take advantage of opportunities for improvement. Our open collaboration with our partners allows us to get to know their practice and meet their billing goals.
