Exposing the Hidden Landmines at Practice with Medical Practice Consulting

Medical practice consulting is a process that focuses on the growth part of healthcare business. Why are practices losing profit? Diving deeper into the practice management aspect of medical sector, there are one too many hidden landmines that if left ignored, can literally put practices out of business. But with the right assistance from professionals this can be duly avoid.

Let us look into the areas at which medical practice consulting can bring in a difference;

• Training the front desk staff- 

The billing cycle of a patent basically starts from the front desk, where an appointment is being schedule and patient is officially contact from the provider’s practice for the first time. However, This is where all the demographics of the patient is collect, insurance data is verify follows by preauthorization’s, co-pays are collect and follow up visits and procedures are schedule. The front-end billing process is very crucial for accurate and full proof claims to go out in the end.

Hence the front-end staff should be adequately train on how to deal with the patients, data collection and receiving co-pays and deductibles. Since, The patient experience at the front desk should b smooth and efficient in a way that suits their convenience and the provider’s ease at work. Medical practice consulting looks into the front-end process and find out what is lacking, so that you can train the staff for a better task management process.

• Practice management guidance- 

For those who are setting up a new practice right after med school, running the practice in a cost-effective way; balancing the treatment and business aspect is hard work. Since, This is where medical practice consulting can help the providers by providing the right guidance and resources to establish a set process, which is efficiently streamlined to success and profitability. With years of experience and expertise in healthcare business, the consultants can scale up and scale down to match the requirements of the providers, and offer the most suitable practice management solutions for them.

• Credentialing assistance-

Every healthcare organization and every provider require getting their staff credential time to time. Whenever a new provider joins the existing team, he/ she needs to be credentialed by authorities, privileged by the facility to fill in the new role and enrolled in to the local insurance network as a part of the panel of providers. Only after these steps are responsibly taken care of, the provider can start meting patients or send out a claim. Credentialling involves tonnes of paperwork and correspondence regarding sending out the application and primary source verifications. Medical practice consulting will guide you through the process and help you get credentialed without hassles eliminating reasons causing unwanted delays. 

• Technology implementation-

All claim work, reimbursements, data management, payments, verifications, appointment scheduling and patient correspondence is done though online platforms and integrated software’s these days. Like every other industry, healthcare IT is on a boom and every practice has to upgrade themselves to digital means for staying abreast competition. Depending upon the size of your practice and the amount of manpower available, Practice consulting agencies can suggest the right software solutions for you. They normally install it at your practice and walk you through the working and customizing nuances of the software. Professional assistance will be provided in training the staff and migrating the existing data to the new platform, so that the rest of the billing process can be proceeded in the new way. 

• Revenue cycle management assistance- 

This is one area where all practices seek help from professional medical practice consulting agencies. Since the revenue cycle is a complex process with numerous possible pitfalls, the providers need considerable assistance to reach zero balance obligation from each patient. Every healthcare staff has a role in the revenue cycle and it is critical that they commit to their roles in the most efficient manner to shorten the cycle. Industry experts can educate the providers and healthcare staff on how to improve their patten of work to reach that goal. Individual sessions will give tips and tricks to accomplish that.

• Patient engagement assistance- 

Nice reviews and good reputation is essential for the practice to acquire more patient inflow and retention of existing clients. The patient should be an active part of the treatment program for better prognosis and successful results. Any misunderstanding, lack of correspondence or poor awareness will end up in a bad patient experience. Practice consulting specialists can assist with good marketing strategies with patients, so that they keep coming back to you. Since, Some of them are patient web-portals, patient call canter assistance, online appointment schedulers, telemedicine, online payment facilities etc.

• Key statistics–

The medical practice consulting team conducts a process audit at your practice and looks at the financial health and adherence to compliance. They will come up with elaborate analysis reports pinning down the areas of discrepancies and risks. However, With their expert recommendations, you can work on the areas that need improvement and keep fine-tuning your workflow to achieve optimal results.