Fight bad debt by using these forces

With consultants’ fee levels very much in the news now that they are being published by the Private Healthcare Information Network, Garry Chapman suggests it is the perfect time to take stock of the way your practice’s medical billing and collection is working. He identifies 11 billing issues to address in private practices. Last month, he dealt with the first five and here tackles the remaining six.

The issues addressed in my points one to five last month revolved around setting up the practice in order to carry out the process smoothly and efficiently. 

Now it is time to attack the operational aspects of the medical billing and collection process.

1 INVOICING

My last article covered the reasons why you need to bill promptly. But I am constantly surprised to see that this golden rule is not always followed and it is not uncommon to find a practice running many weeks or months behind in raising the invoices.

Before sending the invoice out to the relevant payee company/patient, there should be a checking process to make sure the invoice contains all the relevant information and is correctly priced.

Once the invoice is sent, it is too late to change anything and this can either lead to losing money by undercharging or delays in payment if the invoice does not contain all the correct information, which can cause cash-flow issues.