Effective AR Recovery: Tips for Doctors & Healthcare Teams

Maximize AR Recovery Essential Guide for Doctors & Healthcare Providers Welcome to HS MED Solutions The Importance of AR Recovery in Healthcare Accounts Receivable (AR) Recovery is an essential component of managing the finances of a healthcare practice. This is particularly true in a field where the delivery of patient care is the main priority while concerns about cash flow may not be of equivalent importance. However, it is critical to note that effective AR recovery is crucial for the sustenance of a medical practice financially. There are various problems that doctors or care providers have to deal with when it comes to receiving payments from patients or insurers. These challenges when not effectively dealt with via a proper AR recovery process affect the cash flows of the practice threatening its stability and growth. In this guide, we are going to discuss the following topics, • Purpose and significance of AR recovery • AR recovery in revenue cycle management or revenue cycle management process • Strategies to enhance AR recovery. Whether you are healthcare professional managing a small practice or overseeing a large healthcare facility, the fast and effective recovery of AR is essential in maintaining and achieving sustainable success of your practice. Understanding AR Recovery in Medical Billing AR Recovery is recognized as the process of obtaining all the remaining balances from patients or insurance providers for the services delivered. It remains an essential aspect of the RCM process, which is the reimbursement process that links administrative and clinical areas taking into consideration all processes involved in capturing and collecting patient service revenue. Adequate AR recovery simply means that a healthcare practice receives the amount of payment for the services offered as early as possible and without any reduction. AR recovery comprises billing, coding, and claim filing, posting and tracking of the unpaid and rejected claims. All of these processes involve extensive focus and knowledge in the area of medical billing and insurance. This makes it a daunting task for many doctors, due to the disruption on what they charge their clients, delayed reimbursement, claim rejection, and unpaid bills. Another challenge that has commonly been brought up in discussions of AR recovery is the fact that the insurance claims are often rejected. Insurance providers may also reject claims for different reasons including wrong coding, incomplete information or lack of eligibility. The rejected claims not only prolong the time taken before payment, but also take more time and effort to address. The AMA has it that approximately 7-10% of the claims are initially rejected and this leads to major losses in revenues provided they are not recovered. Another concern is the on-going rising contribution of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) that devolve more cost accountability to consumers. Since patients are expected to contribute more money to their healthcare bills, getting payments directly from them has been challenging. According to Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) which carried out a study, the practices only manage to collect 60% of patient balance at the time of service and the remaining 40% end up going to a collection agency. This can result in formation of a cash flow gap which may affect the total economic standing of the practice. How Effective AR Recovery Improves Practice Management The idea of AR recovery is not just to recover your dues but it is to recover the feasibility of your practice. This can be attributed to the fact that better recovery of AR cuts down on the health facility’s ability to recover unpaid amounts that patients owe on their bill. In doing so it enables these practitioners to concentrate more on servicing their clients’ health needs rather than pondering how they would generate sufficient revenue to sustain their practices. AR recovery is directly proportional to the management of practice. When a practice has proper AR recovery process then, it can help in living a practice free of cash flow issues, better management of resources and the amount can be used in the overall development of the practice. For example, timely payment collection helps practices improve access to new equipment’s, extend services, and add more staff, which translates to improved patients care and satisfaction.  One of the ways through which AR recovery could be improved is through outsourcing of medical billing services. A professional billing service are ideal for medical providers since they bring on board specialists that are knowledgeable on the various issues that are likely to affect medical billing. All these professionals are able to notice impediments to AR that may include coding mistakes, lack of documentation, and complex billing procedures. Outsourcing also saves precious time that could be spent by the doctors and their staff on core business, which in today’s integrated health sector is all about delivering care to patients. Also, outsourcing can enhance the AR recovery rates than when the companies manage the exercise internally. A report by Black Book Market Research shows that 80% of practicing physicians who do medical billing outsourcing noted that their RMS had been enhance, with some practicing a 20 to 30% boost in AR recovery rates. This increase can be blamed on the fact that medical billing companies have a wealth of knowledge about the system, and updated equipment to process these claims more quickly and accurately. The Role of Outsourced Medical Billing in AR Recovery Outsourcing of medical billing is one of the critical business strategies that can go a long way in improving AR recovery. Medical billing companies add that richness for experiences on the table that can assist the healthcare providers overcome the obstacles in AR recovery. These companies hire employees who are conversant with bureaucracy in medical billing, the changing regulations, and the demands of insurance service providers. The fourth advantage relates to the availability of state of the art billing technology and software among the outsourcing providers. Currently, software technology used in medical billing companies makes a greater part of the billing process work to be performed online including claim submission payment