Misconceptions of Increasing Accounts Receivable

Misconception # 1

Alice and I had the honor of speaking at the Mid York monthly billing meeting in Syracuse last week. Our topic was “12 Misconceptions of Increasing Accounts Receivable”. We decided the topic was a good one and have decided to share the presentation in it’s entirety over the next couple of newsletters.

Since Alice and I are in a lot of medical offices we see a lot of different situations. Most providers are looking for ways to increase their accounts receivables. Whether they are just looking to make more money, or if they plan on expanding, or if they are not bringing in enough money to cover the expenses of the office, they all are looking to bring in more money. The problem is most of them have the wrong ideas on how to accomplish that.

The very first misconception we spoke on is one of my personal favorites. Many doctors will say to us “If I want more money, I need to see more patients.” What I say to them is that if they want more money, they need to make sure they are getting paid for all the patients they are already seeing and all the services that they are performing.

Many doctors are not even aware of how many patients they are seeing, how much is being billed out, how much is coming in, and how much is being written off. Are the write offs due to contractual adjustments? What percent of claims are being denied? Is their staff taking care of the claim denials, or just writing them off. A survey was done by the Medical Association of Billers in 2004 and they found that only 45% of respondents had ever appealed a denied claim. That means that 55% of respondents do not take care of denied claims. That can be a huge money loss for the provider.

Is your staff running and working regular aging reports? This is another area that much money can be lost. Are copays being collected? Is patient billing being done? If your claims are being submitted electronically, are the electronic reports being downloaded and handled.

As you can see there are many ways that money can be lost in a medical office. If a doctor wants to increase his/her accounts receivable they should first look into if they are collecting all they should be on the patients that they are currently seeing. If they are not collecting all that they should, bringing more patients into the system will just make it worse.