The purpose of NextGen electronic health records (EHR) and practice management (PM) software is to make life easier when running a medical clinic. Most modern health offices use one, if not both, of these software programs to manage the flow of patient information and appointments, communication, and finances. When an office has a messy billing system in place, patient payments are likely missed. Maybe it’s due to a lack of patient follow-ups, miscommunication with insurance companies, or something entirely different. Either way, without payment, an office is losing profits.
If your office uses NextGen software and still struggles with a hard-to-manage billing situation, it’s time to be strategic with the tools you have. Here are some financial management tips you should opt today.
Invest in Employee Training
Advanced software is useless if your staff doesn’t know how to use it or is reluctant to accept it. Taking the time to educate employees on your NextGen software’s capabilities can make the difference between seeing a high return on your investment or being disappointed with the results.
Create a training program that will incentivize your staff to adopt the new practices required to use the software. The goal is not only to make them proficient but to get them enthusiastic about the changes. It may even be beneficial to hire out training or at least on-going support services.
Create Robust Reports and Dashboards
The revenue cycle can be a complicated process to manage. If you’re not already doing so, you can pull a variety of reports from your NextGen software to better understand the flaws and successes of your revenue cycle.
A few beneficial reports offered are:
Revenue cycle dashboards – Identify key performance indicators (KPIs), like counter cash collections, outstanding accounts receivable, overall gross charges, payments, and so on.
Co-pay audits – Track how staff is collecting co-pays to identify areas for improvement,
Front desk audits – Analyze the team’s registration and check-in process to indicate streamlining opportunities, and
Appointment analysis – Identify KPIs like daily or seasonal patterns, appointment statuses (like no-shows), and visit types (like an annual physical or nurse visit).
Upon analysis of these reports, as office manager, you’ll be able to make informed financial decisions, like where to pull money or employees from or where to invest. For instance, if no-show appointments are out of control, consider charging a fee when this happens.
Establish a Workflow for Clearing Credit Balances
Existing credit balances are the unfortunate result of excess payments for some reason or another. Whether the balances are due to accounting errors, duplicate charges, or administrative mistakes, certain steps can be taken to mitigate their occurrence.
Of course, the first thing staff can do to confront these mistakes is to avoid them in the first place. By being more diligent in their execution, the front desk and billing staff can nip it in the bud and provide patients and insurance providers with the correct information right off the bat. However, humans are bound to make errors here and there, and therefore, extra precautions should be put in place.
By creating a workflow with improved processes, these errors will be less likely to make it out of the office. This is often easier said than done and can be challenging to identify where to make improvements. A consulting company that specializes in NextGen software can help you optimize the workflow with their extensive knowledge. NextGen EPM credit balances can be addressed with specialized tools provided in the software.
Consider Billing Staff Augmentation
Busy times are great for business but draining on resources, often leading to some services falling behind. Billing is usually one of the first operations to fall behind when the office gets swamped because patient care comes first. Since many insurance companies have short deadlines for filing a claim, it can be quite costly to come up short in this area. This is why billing staff augmentation can be such a difference-maker.
Whether temporary or long-term, having an extra set of trained hands to assist with billing can result in cleared backlogs and increased revenue. This is an ideal solution if you are looking for temporary help or are unsure of the duration. Either way, you only pay for as long as you need the service, so you are not stuck in another unnecessary subscription.
You are also in control of how much the augmented staff oversees. If you are uncomfortable with outsourced help handling all of your billing, have the augmented staff take on just a portion of the backlog. Sometimes even offloading a small amount of your workload can do wonders to help your office catch up to where it needs to be.
Take Control of Your Finances
It’s understandable for a medical clinic’s finances to go haywire during a busy season or if there’s not a proper system in place to manage cash flow and billing. However, it doesn’t need to be intimidating or overly complex to bring back under control—you likely already have a solid foundation with NextGen PM or EHR software programs. All you need to do is learn how to make the most of what you already have and maybe get some additional help where needed.
