Improve Efficiency: Identifying Time Wasters in ENT Practices

There never seems to be enough time in the day to take care of all the duties associated with Otolaryngology management, billing, and coding. While some practices and clinics get around this by outsourcing billing and ENT services, others rely on in-house staff to take care of all the professional medical billing duties. The best way to make sure that your practice runs as effectively and efficiently as possible is to identify any time wasters in your office and eliminate them as soon as you can. ENT billing and coding is important to any successful office, so taking the time to work with a consultant to identify any issues that could be holding your business back should be a priority.

Increase Patient Appointment Efficiency
Nobody likes to go to the doctor’s office for a scheduled appointment and then sit there for an hour waiting to be seen. If your goal is to improve efficiency with regard to patient services, you can implement little tasks that will help to streamline the entire experience. Here are some tips that you can use to reduce time wasters and make positive strides toward improving professional medical billing practices as well:

• Be Prepared – Make sure your staff arrives at the office an hour ahead of the first appointment. That way, any paperwork, morning routines, return phone calls, and emergencies can be handled before any patients are at the office. This will help you to be ready when the first appointment arrives, and you can start the day off on a positive and timely note.
• Advanced Paperwork – Instead of having patients fill out paperwork immediately before they are seen by the doctor, try having them fill the paperwork the day before. Studies prove that this not only reduces the amount of wait time at the office but can also reduce no-show appointments by as much as 40 percent. When you contact your patients to confirm the appointment, also ask if you can email them the forms to be printed or provide them with online access to your secure server to fill out the information online.
• Open Spots – Keep your office running more efficiently by adding a couple of strategic “open spots” in your day. This will give you time to see urgent care appointments, but also provide you with some openings to “catch up” if some appointments take longer throughout the day.

Identify ENT Billing and Coding Issues
How much time does your staff spend on otolaryngology management, billing, and coding? Do you have staff that is dedicated solely to ENT billing and coding or does your office manager, front desk staff, or other employees take care of your billing and claims submissions as well? Sometimes efficiency can’t happen unless everyone is focused on doing a single task and doing it to the best of their ability. If your staff is juggling multiple duties, this could be the biggest time waster of them all. It may be time to consider outsourcing billing and ENT services to a professional medical billing provider.

There are a lot of myths about outsourcing that cause some practices to avoid this type of service altogether. While there are bad outsourcing services that we hear about on the news for bill collection, customer service, and tech support, this is a completely different situation. You aren’t signing a lifetime commitment to outsourcing. In fact, some practices do it on a temporary basis while they make improvements or provide training to staff. Others do it during their “busy season” or in the midst of an important structural transition. You can start and stop the outsourcing of billing ENT services at any time and, if you work with MD Pro Solutions, you can even use your own medical billing system without being pressured to change.

Hire a Professional Consultant
If you are looking for new ways to reduce inefficiencies in your otolaryngology practice or clinic, MD Pro Solutions can help. We provide a wide variety of professional medical billing, training, and support services designed to assist practices in making improvements that add value. Whether your issue is with otolaryngology management, billing, and coding or by staff members wasting time in other ways, our team can identify the issues and provide you with helpful solutions that you can use to your advantage to make improvements. Give us a call at 508-946-1665 and speak with one of our representatives about your concerns. We specialize in ENT billing and coding, as well as other professional services for Otolaryngology practices and clinics. Call today and see why so many industry professionals trust MD Pro Solutions to help them establish better practices and improve account management across the board.