Auditing & Reviews: Hiring Professional Consultancy Services
How many different hats do you wear every day at your medical practice? If you are like most ENT practices in America today, chances are you do a little bit of everything, but hardly have the time to get it all done by the end of the day. Unfortunately, if this is the case, it is very likely that you are overlooking some very important duties that should be done on a regular basis. Surgical chart auditing, an annual fee schedule review and other types of healthcare audit duties should be performed regularly to ensure that you are in control of your ENT account management. Many practices count on the professional solutions available through consultancy services like the ones you can get at MD Pro Solutions.
Overcoming Common Mistakes
One of the areas where many practices make mistakes that can cost them the income that they need to stay in business and become successful is in properly billing for all services. Surgical chart auditing helps you to spot costly mistakes before they become big problems. Overlooking important notes on forms regarding lab tests, surgeries, treatments and injections that are given in the office or at the hospital can really add up over time. In fact, the average otolaryngology practice loses tens of thousands of dollars each year due to minor mistakes like these.
Simple healthcare audits and reviews can help you to stay on top of your charts and ensure that you charge for all services that are rendered during the visit. Better ENT account management will also help you to have more information for following up on any claims that get denied, ensure that coding on claims submissions and payment processes are accurate, and understand the issues behind the problems that are occurring so you can learn how to overcome them effectively. A simple surgical chart auditing or basic annual fee schedule review can help you to ferret out issues that may be happening with a single insurance company, physician or type of service that is being billed.
Identifying Areas of Concern
Start by working with your office manager to identify any areas of concern that they might have for your ENT account management. If there are no specific concerns, perhaps just an in general healthcare audit is in order. Speak with the representative from the consultancy services to ensure that you know what information will be gathered, what the focus on the audit will be and express an interest in any areas that you want to be reviewed. Ask about specifics, such as surgical chart auditing, annual fee schedule review and other types of audits to ensure that you know what to expect.
Remember that the purpose of hiring professional consultancy services to perform audits and reviews is to check the accuracy of the procedures that you have in place within your practice or clinic. ENT account management isn’t much different from other types of practices, however it is important to work with a team of reviewers that understand your specialty and can look for common errors or problems within the field. A good healthcare audit will reconcile the services that were performed versus the services that were billed or placed in the patient’s medical record, as well as check for billing errors and coding problems.
What to Do After the Audit
Once the healthcare audit is complete, make sure to go over it with the other staff members and physicians within your practice so you can use it to your advantage. Talk about solutions for ENT account management with staff and the professional consultancy services that will help you to make valuable improvements. Any type of surgical chart auditing and annual fee schedule review should be used in this manner, to help you prevent problems from happening again in the future, increase staff training and support, and reduce eligibility denials.
Work diligently with staff on any coding errors and consider taking some “time off” by outsourcing medical billing services while you focus on improving your ENT account management skills in-house. Identify any errors and patterns that you see that are related to diagnosis coding, bundling and any recurring problems that cause delays or denials. Find out the source of the issues and work with staff to overcome problems from happening again in the future. Monitor your accounts, billing and receivables in the coming months to ensure that you were able to use the healthcare audit to your advantage.
Contact MD Pro Solutions
If you are interested in learning more about scheduling a healthcare audit, surgical chart auditing, annual fee schedule review or other types of professional consultancy services to improve your ENT account management, contact MD Pro Solutions by calling 508-946-1665. Our team of highly trained and experienced healthcare consultants, trainers and support staff can help you take control over your otolaryngology practice or clinic.