A structured medical practice is essential to ensure that reimbursement claims are submitted in a timely manner.

Missing, lost, misplaced or improperly filed patient records creates unnecessary medical billing delays and interrupts the flow of funds into the practice.

billingOrganization is the key to a well-run practice that treats as many patients as possible and generates a steady stream of reimbursement claims for medical billing and coding specialists to process.

In the absence of clear cut rules, direction and procedures, waste and chaos results. Distracted billers can make costly mistakes.

Filing practices
Maintaining accurate and easy to access patient records is essential if a biller is to do his/her job. The information contained within the patient’s record is the basis upon which reimbursement claims are filed.

Incomplete, inaccurate or illegible records cause delays in medical billing and can easily result in a payment denial or rejection. The information needed to obtain payment must be maintained in a manner that allows billers to quickly access the information they need to submit claims.

Each to his own task
In smaller practices, staff members may be required to wear a variety of hats, including the clinic’s medical billing and coding specialist. While it’s possible for a clinic’s healthcare staff to multi-task by answering phones, looking up records, scheduling appointments and communicating with other healthcare facilities and pharmacies, it’s not conducive to medical billing practices.

Each team member should have set responsibilities and clear cut job descriptions to avoid wasted effort. That’s not to say that personnel shouldn’t be cross trained to handle other duties should the need arise. Clinicians need to plan for such contingencies and ensure staff has a clear understanding of what to do in specific circumstances.

Set office hours
Setting regular office hours allows patients to know exactly when the clinician is available and keeps practitioners from being pulled in too many directions at once. Scheduling appointments to see clients allows providers to best utilize their time and provides medical billing specialists with a steady stream of claims to submit throughout the day.

Some healthcare professionals prefer the walk-in method of seeing clients with no appointment necessary.

It eliminates the problems of cancellations and no-shows, but there’s no way to ascertain how many patients may or may not arrive.billing and documentation

Clinicians could find their medical billing specialists have few reimbursements to submit.

A well-structured office is one that operates efficiently and where every detail of a patient’s visit is carefully documented and filed for retrieval by the practice’s medical billing specialist.

Careful organization and an eye for detail ensures that billers have the information needed to process reimbursement claims to maintain a steady cash flow into the clinic.