Physical Therapy Practice: Can your billing process be easier?
Streamlining your physical or occupational therapy practice should be the aim of every practice owner. But knowing exactly what to do in order to make this happen can be difficult. There are so many facets that come with managing a private practice; where do you even start?
If you’re still using paper fee slips. STOP. Stop right now. How much time is it taking for the physical or occupational therapist to fill out the CPT codes with the corresponding insurance company, walking the fee slip up to the front desk, collect any payments, and then be sent onto the biller. And that’s not the end of it. The biller then spends an ungodly amount of time inputting the information into your billing program or clearinghouse.
It’s not over yet. What happens if there is data entry error? What happens if your therapist over or under bills? What happens if a modifier was missed? What if Medicare G-codes were missed? Your company spends thousands upon thousands of dollars in employee time costs to appeal and resubmit claims that were denied. And then you may never get paid, or it could take twice as long as if it were correct in the first place.
When you begin researching what types of mdical billing and software programs will help your practice. Keep these key factors in mind:
- Can you automate modifiers to be entered into the claim based off of what is billed?
- Do the therapists get a ‘red flag’ for over or under billing?
- How are G-codes incorporated into the software?
- Am I going to save time with the new system?
Good luck with the transition, but I KNOW you will be so happy to get rid of paper fee slips (and so will your team)!
