Jul 22, 2021 | BC Medical Billing, Medical Billing Software Blog
After Pandemic Impact and Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt in every industry for many months to come. For medical providers, they are facing some of the most challenging financial times they will or have known. Therefore, we understand that it is crucial for providers to re-access their business and look for ways to cut costs with minimal impact on their practice or their patients.
To compound the issues providers are facing, there has been a wave of changes in recent years with new coding and telemedicine requirements that are making it difficult for provider offices to remain independent. Add on the constant rise in the cost of living and expenses while insurance reimbursements continue to decrease, and the issues get worse and worse.
Many have decided that outsourcing to a complete revenue cycle management company could help alleviate some of the undue burdens, cut costs, and keep providers compliant with their coding and billing. Ultimately this allows providers to continue to focus on patient care, which is their goal. As providers, you understand that revenue cycle management is a crucial part of your physician’s office. If not managed properly, it could result in an office leaving thousands of dollars on the table in unclaimed revenue. Over the years, our free audit services have allowed providers to have a free, transparent, and unbiased assessment of how their accounts receivable department functions. We are always amazed at how many providers do their billing in-house, and sometimes even when they outsource, are not aware of how much money they have sitting in their accounts receivables. Getting this knowledge is the first step to increasing revenue and efficiency.
In-house medical billers and third-party outsourced revenue cycle management companies should be giving provider offices monthly aging reports to assess their financial forecast. Each accounts receivable bucket over 60 days should hover at approximately 1 0% or less of the entire revenue balance. If account receivable buckets are higher than 10%, providers may be leaving money on the table, and the account may not be getting worked as providers think they are. In efforts to avoid unpaid claims and a spike in accounts receivable, outsourcing your revenue cycle management to a third-party medical billing company, such as BC Medical Billing, could help providers in countless ways. Many practices recognize that keeping their revenue cycle management optimized is key in delivering regular practice operations; however, they are not always sure how to achieve that. Outsourcing may be the solution!
Outsourcing alleviates the practice from managing a new medical billing employee, paying a salary and benefits, completing training and onboarding protocols, and managing the lost time from a learning curve. Many providers feel that it is not a wise use of the back office executive personnel’s time to worry about finding coders in-house and then wondering if the charges are captured and billed correctly. Instead, the business office should be focusing on how to grow the providers and the physician practice.
Our free audits will help you determine if you have found the right solution for you. If not, we are always there to assist and always increase the provider’s revenue.
ABOUT EZCLAIM:
As a medical billing expert, EZClaim can help the medical practice improve its revenues since it is a medical billing and scheduling software company. EZClaim provides a best-in-class product, with correspondingly exceptional service and support. Combined, EZClaim helps improve medical billing revenues. To learn more, visit EZClaim’s website, email them, or call them today at 877.650.0904.
[ Contribution from the marketing team at BC Medical Billing ]
Jun 29, 2021 | Credit Card Processing, Features, Medical Billing Software Blog
Does your team spend countless hours on the phone attempting to collect payments from patients? Do you know how much of your valuable time is spent performing double data entries of those payments just to keep your books balanced? Do you find yourself wishing you had a one-stop-shop for all your patient payment needs? Well, you are in luck. EZClaimPay has the patient portal feature which allows you and your team to not only save time but makes it easier to collect and record payments.
In 2020, EZClaimPay was launched as a solution to the ever-changing environment of payment reconciliation. This was in response to customers’ difficulties with credit card payment processing. EZClaimPay provides for consolidated reconciliation and a single point of contact for support to make accepting credit and debit card payments painless.
If all that is not enough, the patient portal feature allows for the following:
- Medical staff to text and email patients their statements directly.
- Allows patients to make payments on their mobile devices or online.
- Gives patients the ability to save and print their own receipts.
- Patient payments go directly into your EZClaim account.
- 24-hour a day convenience.
EZClaimPay allows for more freedom to allow patients to pay online, reduced billing errors, increases revenue, and a simplified payment process making the EZClaimPay and the patient portal a no-brainer! For more information contact us or call directly at 877.650.0904.
Jun 15, 2021 | Claims, Credit Card Processing, Medical Billing Customer Service, Medical Billing Software Blog
Are you or your staff having to enter every patient into your EHR program and then again into EZClaim? There is an easier way! Integrating your programs will put an end to duplicate data entry, saving your practice time and money!
So, what exactly is an interface and how does it work? An interface is a way for two programs to share information. For EZClaim clients, the interface can be set up to share data from your EHR program to EZClaim. Your EHR can give you specifics on how to send the data to EZClaim.
In EZClaim you will have an opportunity to review the file prior to saving the data. When you complete the import process, your claims will be created, and libraries will be updated. In addition to creating your claims for each visit, an interface can also create Physician/Facility library entries, as well as Payer library entries, and create new or update existing patient accounts.
If you are working with one of our partner EHRs (Visit our Partner List) the integration between programs can be set up quickly and easily. Since the process varies slightly depending on the EHR you are using, time to complete the integration request will vary.
If you are not using a partner EHR, you may still be able to integrate with EZClaim.
Following are some options:
- In our Online Help File the format types and specifications are available for you to share with your EHR vendor. If they can provide a file in one of the required formats you will be able to import your data.
- You may consider using a third party to write a custom interface for you. If you would like more information on this, contact EZClaim and we will be happy to provide information on consultants who are familiar with the EZClaim platform.
If you have questions, please submit them via email to support@ezclaim.com so a technician can review them and get back with you.
May 11, 2021 | Features, Medical Billing Software Blog
Can you add up the number of hours your billing team spent during any given week or month waiting on-hold with insurance companies to get patient billing information? Does your staff invest hours of their valuable time seeking out the smallest of details to get paid? Are you aware that integrated eligibility, through EZClaim’s medical billing software, can reduce that time on-hold to a fraction of the total?
It is estimated that the average biller can spend up to 2-hours on-hold just to get an insurance company on the phone. Add to that an average of 10 – 15 minutes to talk through a patient and most companies will only address one or two patients at a time. To add to it often there are multiple insurance companies to call. As you can tell you quickly have a considerable amount of time lost making phone calls. Instead of spending hours on the phone with insurance companies, make best use of your staff’s time by checking to see if you have the integrated eligibility feature in your billing software.
Getting started is as easy as getting set up with a clearinghouse (EZClaim clearinghouse partners). Once you are signed up with a clearinghouse for the electronic claim submission program, they will have an integrated eligibility feature that is integrated into EZClaim. Once you sign up with this feature, you can send a batch request of 50 patients at one time and if needed, send multiple requests in a day. Do this by selecting an active patient list collectively or send them individually in smaller amounts. Either way the time savings will be exponential.
Eligibility response reports often come back within seconds making the process nearly real-time. When a response comes back you have the real-time eligibility information. You will get details on if they are covered or not, their active dates, deductibles, co-insurances, co-pays, and what amounts they are subject to and what will be deducted. With EZClaim eligibility integration built in you save valuable time. To learn more contact EZClaim’s website, email, or call 877.650.0904.
ABOUT EZCLAIM:
EZClaim is a medical billing and scheduling software company that provides a best-in-class product, with correspondingly exceptional service and support. Combined, they help improve medical billing revenues. To learn more, visit EZClaim’s website, email them, or call them today at 877.650.0904.
Apr 5, 2021 | EZClaim Premier, Features, Medical Billing Software Blog
EZClaim medical billing software has many features built into the program to help you submit clean claims for quick payment and some that can be customized to fit your specific needs. This post will look at the ability to create customized validation rules.
Your EZClaim program already includes standard validation rules. To access these rules and create your own, press CTRL-ALT-V. This will open the Rule Library.
Here you will find four different types of rules to work with, rules related to:
- Sending claims
- Saving a patient
- Saving a payer library entry
- Saving a physician library entry
Now, click on the rule type you would like to work with and click Edit Rules. A list of rules that are already in the program will appear, along with the option at the top to “Add new validation rule“.
To get started, you will fill in the fields on the bottom left side of the screen:
Name: Name the rule anything you would like
Field: This is the field in Premier that you want to validate
Message: This is the message that will show when the error is encountered (consider using casual wording or extra punctuation so it is easily identified as a custom rule rather than a default rule)
Severity: Do you want the program to simply warn you that there may be an error or stop you from completing the task?
Next, you will build the logic for the validation of the field you have named above. In the example below, the rule has been created to warn users if ALL the following statements are true:
- Authorization Number is blank
- Procedure Code is 90876
- Payer is Blue Cross
Before you begin working with your validation rules it is extremely important to keep the following in mind:
- Rules are created to check for bad or missing data, not to confirm good data.
- Rules in the Sending Claims area may prevent batches from being created.
- If you wish to bypass a built-in validation rule you may disable it, if you want to customize it you can Copy the rule, update, and disable the original rule.
- Rules are the sole responsibility of the practice, EZClaim cannot troubleshoot custom validation rules.
As you can see, custom rules allow you to be very specific and can include multiple data points. Learning to use validation rules can be tricky and may take a few tries to get the rule built correctly. However, once you have the rule in place you can avoid payment delays and needing to resubmit claims.
ABOUT EZCLAIM:
EZClaim is a medical billing and scheduling software company that provides a best-in-class product, with correspondingly exceptional service and support. Combined, they help improve medical billing revenues. To learn more, visit EZClaim’s website, email them, or call them today at 877.650.0904.
Apr 5, 2021 | Medical Billing Software Blog, Waystar
For many providers, medical claim denials are one of the single biggest drains on revenue. When you consider that working just one denial costs about $25, knowing why claims are being denied and how to prevent them in the future isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.
Automation and advanced analytics can take much of the burden off your billing team by helping you identify potential denial triggers, adapt to constantly changing payer guidelines, and uncover actionable trends in your claim data.
Waystar’s Denials by the Numbers:
- 5-10% average denial rate amount physician practices
- 90% of denials are preventable
- 76% of providers say denials are their biggest RCM challenge
[ Note: View or download Waystar’s “Defeat Denials with Data” white paper here ]
Waystar, a partner of EZClaim, integrates easily with its medical billing software, creating a seamless exchange of claim, remit, and eligibility information. To learn more about defeating medical claim denials, or to add Waystar as your clearinghouse, visit this page.
ABOUT EZCLAIM:
EZClaim is a medical billing and scheduling software company that provides a best-in-class product, with correspondingly exceptional service and support. Combined, they help improve medical billing revenues. To learn more, visit EZClaim’s website, e-mail them, or call them today at 877.650.0904.
[ Article and white paper contributed by Waystar ]
