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Are Doctors in US left with little time for Revenue Follow-up?

When doctors take the Hippocratic Oath they vow to take care of the patient and uphold ethical standards. However, in the modern era, only following the traditional custom will cause the physician to run out of business. Revenue Follow-up is one of the most important tasks for a physician.

Having said that, the fact is, doctors cannot keep on following up for payments as that is not their primary task. Their primary aim is to treat patients and follow up for payments need to be delegated to someone else. Given the current scenario of the healthcare industry, with changing payer regulations and constant updates in healthcare, practicing medicine has become more of a task than a pleasure for physicians.

There are two ways of delegating this task; either the physician gets it done in-house by hiring someone to follow up for payment or outsource this service to companies who specialize in providing such services.

Why revenue follow-up is difficult?

Revenue follow-up is a cumbersome task but in the case of physicians, there exists a different set of challenges that they face. Practices make extra appointments in case of some patients not showing up, and also extend patient visits and encourage unplanned procedures. However, this haphazard setup results in improper management which leads to difficulties in revenue follow-up.

Add to this, the current practice environment demands a lot of time from the physicians. The administrative requirement has increased a lot which is actually taking up the physician’s time which ideally should be given to the patient.

Delegating revenue follow-up

As discussed above the physician can delegate the revenue follow-up in two ways; he can either hire someone in-house or outsource this service to a medical billing company. This way the physician can remove this part from his plate.

The decision to hire in-house staff or outsource the RCM process may depend on the size and requirements of the practice. However, either of the two will greatly help in reducing the physician’s added tasks and allow patient satisfaction to be a priority.

Considering outsourcing as a viable option can enable physicians to give enough time to patient care.

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