6 Ways to Accelerate Collections

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Now, please fasten your seatbelt because today’s blog is all about speed and we’d like to ensure your safety!  This post includes 6 ways to accelerate insurance and patient collections.  If yours is like most medical practices today, you face escalating costs and declining reimbursements.  So the smallest hiccup in your collections process can lead to acute cash flow problems with payroll and accounts payable.  Since we know that you don’t have time to spend hours reviewing obscure reports to assess the financial health of your practice, we’ve compiled a list of simple, easy-to-implement ways to accelerate your cash collections today.

1.  Payment Velocity.  In 10 seconds, you can login to Kareo from any computer to determine the financial health of their practice.  Kareo measures the average number of days from the date of service to the date you get paid from patients and their insurance companies, and then displays that number on your dashboard for quick reference.  We also provide benchmark data so you know how you’re performing in comparison to other Kareo practices.  To learn more about payment velocity, visit: http://www.kareo.com/products/paymentvelocity.

2.  Automatic Email Reports.  Kareo will automatically deliver financial reports to your email on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  These reports show you your key metrics including patients, charges, payments, A/R balance and more.  Like with anything else in business, knowledge is power, so having continuous access to the most important data about your practice will allow you to course correct when things don’t quite look right.  To learn more about email reports, visit: http://www.kareo.com/features/reporting.

3.  Electronically Verify Insurance Benefits.  In Kareo, you can use real-time-eligibility technology to verify insurance benefits in less than 5 seconds.  By verifying insurance eligibility and benefits before you see the patient, you can ensure that you have valid payment information.  This will let you submit clean insurance claims the first time and reduce downstream claim denials for ineligible patients.  This powerful feature alone can shave days and weeks off your collections cycle. To learn more about real time eligibility, visit http://www.kareo.com/demo/patient-records-feature.

4.  Primary and Secondary Electronic Claims.  Kareo allows you to send primary and secondary electronic claims to all major insurance companies.  If you’re currently sending paper claims to primary or secondary insurance carriers, switching to electronic submissions will dramatically accelerate your collections speeds while significantly reducing your internal costs.  To learn more about electronic claims processing, visit http://www.kareo.com/features/electronic-claims-processing.

5.  Electronic Remittance Advice (ERAs).  All major insurance carriers offer ERA technology in which they send you a secure electronic payment and electronically transfer the related check into your bank account.  Not only does this cut down time to payment since the checks don’t have to travel through the mail, but it also dramatically reduces your labor requirements by allowing you to automatically post payments with one mouse click.  Learn more about ERAs, visit http://www.kareo.com/features/payments-and-electronic-remittance.

6.  Automate Patient Statements Processing.  If you are still manually printing and mailing patient statements, this means you’re spending more money only to slow your collections process.  The combined cost of toner, paper, envelopes, postage, and labor hours which is required to manually print and mail statements adds up.  Kareo automates patient statement processing by printing and mailing them within 24 hours for just $.69/each.  To learn more about patient statements, visit http://www.kareo.com/features/patient-statements.

Thanks for reading this post.  If you’d like to join the discussion, please add a comment below.  If you’d like to reach me directly, you can email me at jasonm@kareo.com.