Within a PT practice, the process of getting your billing and claims completed routinely can represent a significant drain on staff time. Filing claims with various insurance companies, combined with keeping up with Medicare filing requirements, can get complicated. If mistakes are made, that could lead to delays in payment or call for you to go through the process again to resubmit the claim.
An automated PT practice documentation software system can take a great deal of the overhead out of keeping up with the billing labyrinth and save your practice a huge amount of money, time and frustration. Because the parameters of the claims process are automated and the staff member that is assigned to handling billing and claims can be “walked through” the process by a well-designed online program, claims are completed more promptly and errors are reduced dramatically. Because the software system takes on the job of keeping up with forms and requirements for successful submission of claims that come from insurance companies, far fewer claims for payment are rejected and cash flow for your practice will improve significantly.
A powerful feature of an automated PT practice reimbursement management system is that common mistakes will be taken care of automatically because the software will have the intelligence programmed in to be on the alert for mistakes and correct them directly. In many cases, the staff person involved may never know that the mistake was made because the software took care of it efficiently and quietly. Moreover, every facet of a PT practice documentation management system will work from the same central database of customer data. There is no need to enter customer name, identification numbers or any other data more than once. When that information is entered into the software management database correctly once, it stays correct forever.
A benefit to your PT practice of automating the billing process that is less measurable is one that is nonetheless important. That benefit is the improved morale and efficiency of your staff. Using a well-designed PT practice documentation management system makes processing claims much less tedious because the repetitive functions are taken care of automatically. All that is needed is for the staff member to update the records with the most recent notes and details of treatment and other justification information that was not already in the system.
As a result, the “procrastination” factor is reduced because staff members no longer dread working on claims processing. Time spent on claims is vastly reduced, allowing you to use your skilled staff members more efficiently and perhaps even maintain a lower staff overhead. The improved morale means your staff members are more enthusiastic and positive about their work and they can put more of their time and emotional energy into taking good care of the patients of your PT practice. All of these are very positive benefits of the simple step of adding software intelligence to your PT billing procedures.
Of the many clerical functions a PT practice staff must take care of, filing a claim for payment is by far the most demanding and difficult. The steps needed to do the job well are complicated, long and they change routinely. If you are doing your insurance claims manually, you know how easy it is for a claim to be rejected for a small mistake. A good PT practice documentation and billing management system can keep up on the differences between each insurance company’s claims processing and forms and on the changes that must be accommodated for to be successful in the claims process.
The software can do this automatically, thus making the many benefits we have discussed a reality quickly after you implement the software solution. These benefits alone could be all that is needed to justify the cost and effort it will take to switch from a manual PT practice documentation system to an automated system as quickly as you can prudently do so.
Following one of our frequent updates: “Like that new billing feature for evals, progress notes, d/c’s. Excellent!” Jason H, Lead PT, Owner, Indiana
