Is Your Chiropractic Practice Management System Built Backwards? Part IV

dy">very small chance of getting paid at all. Almost
100% Transparent Billing Process &none of the doctors I have asked know what this
Maximized Collections:number is before becoming a client. What is
What does this mean? If you ask 100 doctorsworse is they judge their performance on what
what are their biggest concerns with outsourcedpercent of what they bill do they collect. Ex: I
billing, or in some cases billing in house for a bigbilled $10,000, I collected $5,000 which is 50%.
office, 99 of them would say control. They areThis is a horrible metric for a lot of reasons that I
not sure that all of there claims are gettingwill not go into here. Whatever percent they think
submitted in a timely manner. They are not sureis good is what they compare their performance
that the billing department is following up in ato. Your practice management system should
timely manner, on all the claims, and on thehave a dashboard of numbers that are in real
difficult claims.time and drillable. In other words if your AR >
Billing companies are notorious for taking the easy120 is 30% you should be able to click on it, see
money on the easy claims and not going afterreports of that bucket of AR, and have the
every penny. In house billers are notorious foroption to see down to the claim level what has
slacking off on submissions, EOB posting, andhappened since that claim was created. That is
follow up. Each task is a separate skill set andtransparency, Weather you out source or keep it
when doing one chore means adding more ofin house you need that level of control and your
another (ex: posting denials means more followstaff needs to know it is there. If your
up), claims get shuffled around, EOB's pile up andoutsourcing this would need to be a web based
so on. With all that a doctor needs to do to run asystem to give real time access. Then you can
successful practice the first thing they usuallysee that every claim was followed up on, not just
neglect is managing the billing. This is why theythe large ones. If a one letter in the name of a
outsource to begin with, the "Let them worrypatient is changed, it should be logged with the
about it" attitude. This usually works until thename of the person who changed it and the day
doctor realizes he has no idea where his money isand time. Most practice management systems on
and they spend more time calling their billingthe market do not offer this because they are
company or yelling at staff and worrying aboutsimply built backward. They are not built for
Mr. Smith's billing then they do practicing. Without atoday's chiropractor.
system that captures every task needed andDon't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that
drives the work the inevitable happens. Loweryou look at every claim you bill out. I am
collections and no transparency into whatsuggesting you use a system that pushes key
happened. Without an audit trail of every actionmetrics to you and when those metrics do not
taken including follow calls there is no control.look right the system should give you the options
In working with hundreds of clients I am alwaysexplained above.
shocked at how few of them know what thereSummary:
accounts receivable numbers are. For example,
The national average for AR that has gone past1. % AR over 120 days is the "Gold Standard"
120 days is 17.7%. This is across all providers.metric for insurance collections...You should know
Chiropractors are typically higher. In the billingit!!
industry this is the "Gold Standard". In theory if2. Transparency into those numbers gives you
you have not gotten paid in 120 days you have acontrol and profitability management.