Aligning your medical billing goals with your Practice’s Goals!

A truly successful medical practice in today’s evolving healthcare industry is one that has its goals aligned with its medical billing goals. To a physician, however, it may seem like yet another time consuming task, but well determined objectives of a medical practice, if successfully translated into billing and coding practices can result in enhanced efficiency and greater profitability.

Many practices outsource their medical billing functions to third party experts, who work on pay-for-performance principle. This in-turn ensures that the billing experts work in sync with the revenue goals of the practice, for they get paid only when you get paid. Another way to go about medical billing is enhancing the in-house function; along with implementing performance based compensation to in-house staff may help do justice to your revenue goals.

Goal alignment has become the need of the hour for maintaining the competitiveness of your practice. The following steps can assist you in effective definition of practice goals and alignment of the same with medical billing goals –

• Identify your primary goals – Medical practice is built around the primary goals of patient care and service, which can resultantly improve revenues. Although profits and revenue are not primary goals, they are essential elements of every practice. Thus, it is crucial to write down goals in clear statements such as – “our goal is to maximize revenue while delivering unmatched healthcare and medical service to each and every patient” or “Assist patients in accessing healthcare service at reasonable costs and without wastage of time.”
   
• Communicate these goals to the medical billing staff – Once your goals are defined, make sure to discuss the same with your billing staff. Many physicians deign to indulge in the financial aspect of their practice and thereby lose out on a big chunk of their revenues. Medical billing goals are primarily focused on payment collection, correct coding, claim filing and reimbursements. Each activity takes new meaning if only practice goals are communicated well to the billing experts, whether external or internal.
   
• Monitor the gap in understanding and training – Keeping a track of staff activities and billing reports can effectively prove if medical billing goals and practice goals are aligned or if there is some gap in staff or consultant understanding. Regular interactions and consultations will lead to clearer goals and efficient achievement of the same.
   
• Update goals as per the changing industry scenario – HIPAA and HITECH guidelines, in addition to EHR regulations and RAC procedures have necessitated extreme caution and care to be applied while handling with patient data. Medical billing and coding goals are required to be more data and revenue centric rather than service oriented. However, a balance can always be established between conflicting goals.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com can help you define your practice goals and align them with medical billing goals. We can facilitate you in achievement of your financial and service objectives on a continual basis by understanding your practice objectives and applying them to your billing practices.

Our billing experts have been serving healthcare specialists in varied domains across all 50 US States for more than a decade now. We help physicians concentrate on patient care as we handle their entire revenue cycle process in line with their medical billing goal; along with assisting them in aligning their practice goals with the help of our experts’ in-dept healthcare industry knowledge.