Throughout the United States, many medical practices face huge losses due to rejected claims, inefficient patient billing, and late payments from the patient’s end.
In addition to this, other out-of-pocket and patient responsibility costs are beginning to rise at a drastic level.
A patient can make it easier to close a claim cycle at payment posting by paying coinsurance, co-pays, and out-of-pocket costs on time.
Payment posting is one of the fundamental features of the RCM.
However, it may seem to be a very simple task in medical billing.
It can have a major influence on business efficiency, patient satisfaction, and the overall financial performance of the medical practice.
What Is Payment Posting & What’s Its Significance?
Payment posting provides a snapshot of a practice’s financial picture.
You can identify concerns as well as solve problems fast and view payments efficiently.
This enables you to have an efficient payment posting system in place to see daily insurance checks from ERAs, insurance payments from EOBs, patient payments, and take an efficient view of your day-to-day financial picture.
Conventional wisdom re-emphasizes that medical practices must excel in business growth in a highly competitive economic environment.
The trillion-dollar US healthcare market has seen breakdowns in the billing and coding systems.
Effective medical billing and coding as well as payment spotting procedures can help you promote quality healthcare services to your patients effectively.
To identify payer problems payment posting is irrefutably the first line of defense.
Though it is the last step in the RCM it still holds significance in the smooth functioning of the entire medical billing process.
It helps practitioners recognize the real causes behind the problematic issues related to posting changes or dissents and address them on time.
As it is such an important step for the medical billing process that examines the revenue cycle.
It helps to increase revenue by adopting better development opportunities.
Therefore, healthcare providers before opting for outsourcing to a reliable medical billing company must understand the benefits of payment posting in medical billing.
Potential Benefits of Payment Posting
Solve Recurring Intricacies
Accurate payment posting enables you to resolve various intricacies within the healthcare revenue cycle management i.e, wrong calculation and incorrect entry at an early stage.
It involves reducing denials and posting adjustments along with posting payments.
Recognizing rejections on time helps you to prevent future claims from getting rejected for the same reason and resolve the reason for the claim denials.
In addition to this, effective payment posting also eliminates issues like identifying services that need prior authorization, non-covered services, and informing the patient about the same.
Analyzing RCM
Your financial success in healthcare depends on the efficient RCM. Healthcare providers lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year due to an inefficient revenue cycle.
You must identify critical weaknesses and have a complete understanding of the medical billing system.
This helps you to easily analyze your revenue cycle when payments are posted to patient accounts.
You get efficient analytics that enable you to improve the way your A/R department works and assist you in maximizing your revenue streams by enhancing business profitability.
Moreover, proper visibility of medical billing procedures enables you to mitigate the complexities of running a healthcare business.
Comprehensive analysis helps you plan predictable growth by reducing risks, it consists of 3 phases;
Also Read: Eight Questions to Ask a Medical Credentialing Services
Accounts Receivable Analysis
- Compile accounts receivable reports of all unpaid claims.
- Investigate the payment status of each patient claim by claim.
- Using the billing history report.
- Locate unpaid claims.
- Check the status of each unpaid claim by making notes.
Patient & Claims History
- Review all services rendered to each patient.
- Ensure each service provided has been billed by reviewing all claims created.
- Generate a billing history report of all unbilled and billed services.
Reporting And Plan of Action
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Create an RCM plan of action
- Formulate methods to avoid these continuing errors.
- Identify common errors, mistakes, and rejections.
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Using the data to create the following reports\
- List of all denied claims.
- Collected amount vs. billed amount.
- Denied claims vs. billed claims.
- Unbilled services report.
- Accounts receivable report with claims statuses.
Less Denial Resolution Time
To resolve denials, the effective method is to prevent them.
So, healthcare practitioners must correspond with the other insurance payers who provide the latest updates on new coding and billing rules.
Healthcare practices should monitor instructions from payers by staying up-to-date on bulletins.
You must have experienced staff who timely correct the denied claims and send them to the payers for prompt payments.
It will contribute to your overall accounts receivable days with each passing day as your denials go unresolved.
Strengthens Current Procedures
The efficiency of the medical staff is highly impacted by the revenue cycle process. Sometimes management procedures impact the functioning of the revenue cycle.
In order to enhance the effectiveness of the RCM, it is integral to determine whether a specific process could be improved, added, or removed.
Accurate Claims Submissions
It also impacts the accuracy of claims submission to tertiary and secondary payers when you have accurate payment postings.
However, the tertiary and secondary payers can get billed inaccurately if the primary payment is not posted accurately.
Healthcare providers should look for ways to continuously monitor claim submission processes.
This enables you to improve each area of the revenue cycle efficiently.
In this way, you will stay in compliance with proper billing practices and witness maximum reimbursements.
Conclusion
Professional medical billing experts understand the sensitivity and benefits of payment posting.
It is a crucial step in medical billing.
But sometimes medical professionals face a lot of challenges associated with tedious and time-consuming procedures of medical billing.
Many medical facilities are hiring a professional medical billing company to outsource their payment posting.
This is a cost-effective way to streamline your billing cycle and maintain an efficient payment posting process.
Your practice can thrive when payment posting is done right.
With problems being spotted faster, better cash flow from better collections, patients will receive their statements promptly, secondary payers will be billed correctly, billing issues can be addressed quickly, and the efficiency of your business will boost remarkably.
Hi, I’m the Founder and Developer of Paramedics World, a blog truly devoted to Paramedics. I am a Medical Lab Tech, a Web Developer and Bibliophiliac. My greatest hobby is to teach and motivate other peoples to do whatever they wanna do in life.
Efficient payment posting enhances accuracy, cash flow, and financial tracking in medical billing.
This is a cost-effective way to streamline your billing cycle and maintain an efficient payment posting process.