Autocollect Spectrum
“Patient Healthcare Costs Rise Again, Clinicspectrum’s Solutions Lessen the Burdens and Increase Revenue”
According to a recent article dated November 13th, 2014 on Forbes.com, “Worker Out-Of-Pocket Health Costs Have Doubled In Five Years”, the healthcare landscape is predicted to change even further in 2015. “As the economy improves and employees spend more on health care, employer-paid premiums are rising again with an increase of 5.5 percent forecast for 2015 with worker premiums and out-of-pocket costs – which have doubled since 2009 – rising at an even faster clip.” Additionally, the annual healthcare costs per employee have risen from $10,717 to $11,304 this year. This means that more out of pocket expenses are outstanding and collecting that money can raise new challenges for medical groups. Strategic solutions must be implemented in the areas of proper benefit verification, and automated patient collections to reduce revenue downfalls for practices.
In fact, practices are generating up to 30 to 40 percent of their revenue from patients who have high-deductible insurance coverage. Failing to check patient eligibility and deductibles can increase denials, negatively impact cash flow and profitability.
One solution is to improve eligibility checking using the following best practices:
-Check patient eligibility 48 to 72 hours in advance of scheduled visit using one of these three methods:
- Business-to-business (B2B) verification, which enables practices to electronically check patient eligibility using electronic data interchange (EDI) via their electronic health record (EHR) and practice management solutions.
- Look up patient eligibility on payer websites.
- Call payers to determine eligibility for more complex scenarios, such as coverage of particular procedures and services, determining calendar year maximum coverage, or if services are covered if they take place in an office or diagnostic center. Clearinghouses do not provide these details, so calling the payer is necessary for these scenarios.
-Determine patient financial responsibilities – high deductibles, out-of-pocket limits, then counsel patients about their financial responsibilities before service delivery, educating them on how much they’ll need to pay and when.
-Determine co-pays and collect before service delivery.
Another area of potential pitfall for revenue optimization comes from collecting patient balances after the services have been rendered. It is imperative for medical groups to turn to automated solutions to help recover those balances seamlessly and effectively.
Automated collection software can be installed and managed by practices to relentlessly – within regulations – contact debtors to increase collection rates. Traditional collection methods of standard mail delivery and costly representative phone calls are replaced by a more elaborate, seamless, cost-effective auto collection process. Automated collection methods using technology platforms, decisions rules and messaging such as text, email, push notifications on smart phones and automated calls to allow seamless, consistent results for balance collection.
For more information on ways we can help, visit our website, www.clinicspectrum.com.
Quit ‘Leaving Money on the Table’ with Automated Collection Software
At what point should practices “leave money on the table” and abandon their collection efforts on patient-owed balances? It’s a difficult decision that today’s practices are being forced to make more often than they’d like.
Collecting past-due balances from patients is an important component of the revenue cycle that physician practices must actively manage, but it’s costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Only a relatively small percentage of efforts result in successful collection. For the remaining patients who fail to respond, practices are forced to report debts to credit bureaus or take legal action to collect past-due balances. In the end, every dollar invested in the collection process is one less dollar of profit for the practice.
But it gets worse. The cost of collecting on small-dollar accounts can easily exceed the past-due balance. The result is that many practices choose to “leave money on the table” rather than pursue advanced collection efforts. Over the course of year, these ignored accounts add up to a substantial sum of money.
Perhaps now, with the assistance of technology, practices will no longer have to make the decision to forego collecting past-due balances. A new breed of automated collection software eases the burden of patient collections. These solutions reduce the time and costs associated with standard mail delivery and costly representative phone calls.
Automated collection software can be installed and managed by practices to relentlessly – within regulations – contact debtors to increase collection rates. Practices that are considering the implementation of this software should look for the following capabilities:
- Messaging Options – These allow practices to tailor how the patient will be contacted. Options include text, secure text, email, secure email, push notifications to smart phones, and automated calls. These options allow practice to contact debtors via multiple methods to increase collections.
- Decision Rules – These allow practices to configure when and how often the debtor is contacted. Options include setting the date, time, hour and frequency of contact.
Practices employing automated collection software can reduce their collection costs and increase the chances of collecting balances by eliminating representative involvement and automating the process. Most importantly, practices can quit “leaving money on the table.”
Automate to Collect patient balances
Out of sight, out of mind. Applied to healthcare, this age-old saying is not only true, but also incredibly problematic for physician practices. All too frequently we hear from physicians the same story of providing care up-front, and subsequently facing a growing stack of un-paid deductibles, ultimately hurting the bottom line. No one is immune to this – not general practitioners, specialists, psychologists, nor dentists.
With the trend of increasing deductibles, there is only going to be more to collect. For 2014, the internal revenue service has defined high-deductible as $1250 for an individual and $2500 for a family. On top of that, maximum out-of-pocket expenditures are estimated at $6350 for individuals and $12,700 for families. That’s no small change; that’s real money when factoring in the number of patients you see.
Some practices may have an initial reaction of fear or a sense of alarm from these numbers however, these statistics should be the impetus to be proactive and put the right series of steps and technologies into place. Those steps include implementing a hybrid workflow model that starts with using an established eligibility checking system to identify a patient’s expected out-of-pocket costs prior to an appointment will significantly lessen the follow-up collections that are needed. However, when you do need to collect, make sure you are doing it smartly by leveraging the second piece of a hybrid workflow solution, an automated collection system to significantly increase the odds that you will collect more, and also collect it faster.
Recent highlights from the Pew Research Internet Project state that as of January 2014, 58% of adult Americans have a smartphone. Doesn’t it make sense then that you should have an automated system that includes texting alerts instead of sending outdated hard copy letters? By replacing traditional collection methods with an automated technology platform that smartly uses decision rules to push out text and secure e-mail, and logs a record of all the activity, you can count your profits instead of counting the number of uncollected deductibles.
Automate to Collect
Out of sight, out of mind. Applied to healthcare, this age-old saying is not only true, but also incredibly problematic for physician practices. All too frequently we hear from physicians the same story of providing care up-front, and subsequently facing a growing stack of un-paid deductibles, ultimately hurting the bottom line. No one is immune to this – not general practitioners, specialists, psychologists, nor dentists.
With the trend of increasing deductibles, there is only going to be more to collect. For 2014, the internal revenue service has defined high-deductible as $1250 for an individual and $2500 for a family. On top of that, maximum out-of-pocket expenditures are estimated at $6350 for individuals and $12,700 for families. That’s no small change; that’s real money when factoring in the number of patients you see.
Some practices may have an initial reaction of fear or a sense of alarm from these numbers however, these statistics should be the impetus to be proactive and put the right series of steps and technologies into place. Those steps include implementing a hybrid workflow model that starts with using an established eligibility checking system to identify a patient’s expected out-of-pocket costs prior to an appointment will significantly lessen the follow-up collections that are needed. However, when you do need to collect, make sure you are doing it smartly by leveraging the second piece of a hybrid workflow solution, an automated collection system to significantly increase the odds that you will collect more, and also collect it faster.
Recent highlights from the Pew Research Internet Project state that as of January 2014, 58% of adult Americans have a smartphone. Doesn’t it make sense then that you should have an automated system that includes texting alerts instead of sending outdated hard copy letters? By replacing traditional collection methods with an automated technology platform that smartly uses decision rules to push out text and secure e-mail, and logs a record of all the activity, you can count your profits instead of counting the number of uncollected deductibles.
A Complete Guide of our Technically Sound Product : CredentialingSpectrum
A complete credentialing profile module for:
- Management of Credentialing and Re-credentialing activities and reminders
- Complete Cloud based Documents Management for Credentialing Documents
- Reminders on Expiration of various credentials such as CDS, DEA, License, CAQH, Board Certification, Mal Practice , Hospital Privileges
- Facility Credentialing Management
- Insurance Participation Agreements and/or Contract Management
- Auto-fax, Auto-email and Secure Messaging Capability
- Extensive Report and/or analytics Module
ClinicSpectrum Introduces AutoCollectSpectrum at HIMSS14, Aiding Practices with Deductible Collection under the ACA
Company’s unique portfolio of solutions enable physician offices to maximize profitability and productivity
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — (HIMSS Booth #8244) – ClinicSpectrum, leaders in hybrid workflow solutions consisting of both an innovative software suite and back-office operations, today announced the introduction of its latest offering, AutoCollectSpectrum. The patent-pending solution is designed specifically to assist physician practices with the growing amount of deductible collection that will be necessary with the huge influx of eligible patients under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). AutoCollectSpectrum is being unveiled at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference & exhibition in Orlando, Fla., February 24-27, and is expected to be widely available to physician offices in March.
“Our goal is to support physicians and their practices by enabling them to focus on medicine and maximize profitability while ClinicSpectrum’s solutions automate their billing and collection processes,” explained Vishal Gandhi, chief executive officer, ClinicSpectrum. “With AutoCollectSpectrum, we can readily help practices benefit from the changes brought on from healthcare reform.”
AutoCollectSpectrum is an automated program to expedite the collection of deductibles and other balances owed. The patent-pending and proprietary collection method uses automated secure text, patient portals and other messaging channels in place of traditional phone calls, and hard copy, mailed letters. By eliminating the representative involvement and automating the process, physicians reduce the cost and time involved with retrieving payments.
Other products in the ClinicSpectrum portfolio that also help enhance efficiency and maximize revenue include EligibilitySpectrum, as well as the patent-pending ProductivitySpectrum, InvoiceSpectrum and CredentiallySpectrum.
EligibilitySpectrum – With the enormous influx of patient deductibles in the health insurance market place, EligibilitySpectrum enables practices to readily manage the complete eligibility of all patients by combining software and back-office operations resources. The options include using a real-time connection with a clearing house, insurance companies’ websites, or live calls conducted by ClinicSpectrum’s eligibility team. This product interfaces via an API with any EHR / scheduling system.
ProductivitySpectrum – Focused on benchmarking on various tasks and instilling self-accountability through daily reporting, this product calculates employee desk time and reduces ideal time or non-productive time. It provides comparative analysis with respect to industry and / or office benchmarks, and expected weekly or monthly productivity.
InvoiceSpectrum – By using a unique payment and invoice processing rule setup for auto-fax, auto-email, auto-credit card processing and auto-paper statement processing, practices will benefit from saving time on template creation, follow-up and more. Additionally the product provides monthly forecast management, receivable management and sales force productivity examination for better cost/profit analysis.
CredentialingSpectrum – CredentialingSpectrum is an automated tool for the credentialing of providers’ profiles and insurance participation, as well as for contract management. It allows users to import CAQH summaries for faster data entry of a provider’s profile, and also auto populates participation application forms from most insurances. It also has a built in document management, task management, milestone management, and reminder functionality for expiration of various documents and credentials, as well as communication templates and messaging solutions for automated calls, secure email, secure text and fax. For more information about ClinicSpectrum or any of their physician practice products, please visitwww.ClinicSpectrum.com.
About ClinicSpectrum
ClinicSpectrum is a healthcare services company providing outsourcing/back-office and technology solutions for 17+ medical billing companies, 600+ medical groups/healthcare facilities including hospitals, and hospital medical records departments.
The company is promoted by technical experts from diversified industries. In a span of 12 years, ClinicSpectrum has been able to transform several billing companies and healthcare facilities nationwide with unprecedented efficiency. The company’s strategy is to build productivity through the use of technology, highly trained personnel who deliver results in a timely fashion, and customized consulting services. ClinicSpectrum has created a solution for all the problems in running a medical billing company and medical practice resulting in better clinical records, revenue cycle, and administrative task management. For more information, e-mail Vishal@Clinicspectrum.com or visit www.ClinicSpectrum.com.
For media inquiries, contact:
Kate Ottavio, KNB Communications for ClinicSpectrum
203-504-8230 x135
kottavio@knbpr.com
Sagar Shah
Clinicspectrum blog 