What to Look for In a New Billing Software for Your Practice
If you’re in the market for new billing software for your physical therapy practice, you might be wondering which features will be the most useful to you and your employees. The wrong billing solution can make running a practice much harder than it needs to be – and having the right billing software can improve cash flow, reduce mistakes and rebilling, and make your job easy. With that in mind, here are some of the key features and functionalities to look for as you compare billing software solutions for your practice.
Cloud Computing
Whether you’re running one PT practice or several, it’s useful to be able to access your billing system wherever you are. After all, you don’t want billing to be delayed if you’re on the road or working from home.
Cloud-based billing software makes it easy to manage multiple practices from one location, or to access your patient billing information and send reminders when you’re at a conference or the office is closed due to bad weather.
Reputation
This isn’t a feature, but you should consider the billing software’s reputation before you buy. You can do that by reading reviews and comparisons to find out how it stacks up next to other options.
The important thing is to choose billing software that will do what you need it to do with a minimum of glitches and irritations. You should also find out what kind of support and service the software company provides to its clients. That way, you’ll be sure to have the help you need available if you run into a problem.
Built-in ICD Codes
One of the most common billing and insurance problems physical therapy practices face is improper coding of procedures and treatments. When coding errors occur, they lead to insurance companies denying claims. Your staff ends up spending additional time correcting the bills and rebilling the insurance carriers when they could be doing other things.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to choose billing software that has built-in codes and automation to prevent errors. Even when your staff is creating superbills, they can be sure that the bills are error-free from the start.
EMR Encryption
As health care providers, physical therapists are bound by HIPAA regulations to protect patient data and electronic medical records. Since your EMR and billing are tied together, it’s essential that your new billing software includes EMR encryption.
Proper EMR protection relies on strong passwords and encrypted ciphers to allow providers to protect patient information on their networks and in the cloud.
Patient Statements and Follow-Ups
Even if you and your staff make every effort to collect patient payments in your office, it’s inevitable that there will be times when an account is past due. When that happens, you need an easy and convenient way to follow up.
The right billing software will make it easy for your staff to generate patient statements for mailing or emailing. You may also want to look for a system that has follow-up correspondence for you to use when necessary.
Payment and Refund Tracking
Even in a small practice, it can be a challenge to track patient payments and refunds. We know because we struggled with spreadsheets and piecemeal tracking for years before we created HENO.
It’s important to choose billing software that makes it simple for you to keep track of payments. You should be able to generate reports showing collected and outstanding payments for any time period you choose.
Account and Revenue Tracking
For your physical therapy practice to be successful, you must be able to track your accounts and revenue. That means having the ability to enter all revenue – including billing and supply sales – into your billing software.
Your best bet is to look for a software solution that lets you manage your practice’s finances from one location. In other words, it shouldn’t just be about billing. It should include sales and inventory tracking, insurance billing and more.
Cost
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that cost is a major consideration for many physical therapy practices in the market for new billing software.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that your comparisons must take everything into consideration. A cheaper option may not be cheaper if the software in question has fewer features, less functionality or lackluster support.
It can be difficult to make a true apples-to-apples comparison, but you may want to make a list of your most important considerations and assign a point value to each item for each provider.
Choosing the right billing software is a must if you want to streamline your billing procedures and grow your practice. The features and considerations we’ve listed here can help you make the right choice. At HENO, we understand the importance of having an easy and efficient billing process. To learn how HENO can help streamline your medical billing, please click here to schedule a free demo.
