Radiology is one of the critical medical domains that require you to leverage the advanced imaging services like X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. Your radiology practice involves thousands of procedures; making radiology billing an overwhelming task for you.
Radiology has two main parts: technical and professional. When a radiologist uses tools like dyes or machines, that falls under the "technical" side of their work. But the interpretations of results are considered as the "professional" part.
Before you navigate the Radiology revenue cycle management services, you must know about the critical key indicators that you must leverage to improve your overall radiology billing practices.
Key indicators used by radiology billing practices:
1) Gross collection percentage:
To ensure a perfect financial health for your radiology practice, you must use a key indicator like Gross Collection Percentage. This critical indicator tells you how money you collect from your patients and their insurance companies. You can measure GCP by dividing the total amount of collection by the total billed amount.
If you are experiencing low gross collection percentage, it means that your practice is struggling with the payment collection from your patients and their insurance companies.
2) Average net percentage:
Radiology practices with a high gross collection percentage often have a higher average net percentage, too. This happens because they can collect more of the money they bill. Your average net percentage can be influenced by different factors, like how you handle billing, the types of patients you see, and the insurance companies you work with.
3) Average Accounts Receivable:
You measure Average Accounts Receivable by dividing the total amount you've billed by the number of days since those imaging services were performed. Good radiology claim processing helps ensure that your Average AR remains low, which is a sign of effective billing practices.
4) Average recovery of bad debts:
When a patient doesn't pay their bill, the pending amount is called bad debt in your radiology billing practices. This is becoming a bigger problem in healthcare. The shocking reality is that In 2020, around $543 billion was marked as bad debt. This amount accounts for 6.3% of all healthcare practice revenues. By 2025, you can expect to reach this amount to $718 billion. This amount contributes to the bad debt of healthcare providers.
You have several options to recover bad debt. The most common way is to use collection agencies. They assist you in finding the patients who still owe money to you and collect the amount promptly from them. You can also consider hiring lawyers to throw law suit against the patients who have not paid their dues. You can also set up a payment plan with their patients in advance to avoid any potential conflict.
To establish the seamless radiology billing practices, you must know about the key factors that affect your practice’s collections.
Factors affecting payment collection in your radiology billing practices:
1) Data quality:
The quality of your data is really important for collections. Inaccurate data can cause your practice to face difficulties in collecting payment from your patients and their insurance companies. This often happens because of wrong patient information or incorrect billing codes.
If you want to improve collections in your radiology practice, make sure your data is accurate. This means checking that patient information is correct and that the billing codes match the services provided. You should also review your billing practices to ensure you're billing patients correctly.
2) Effectiveness of your radiology billing mechanism:
An efficient mechanism of radiology billing practices allows you to collect payments from patients and their insurance companies fast, thus giving a strong boost to your overall practice revenue.
There are several factors that you must consider when selecting a billing mechanism. The most important one is whether the system meets your practice's needs. It should be able to handle your billing requirements, like tracking patient information and billing codes. Plus, it should be easy for your staff to use.
There are more radiology billing mistakes than you might think. To avoid these issues, you can rely on an experienced third-party RCM service provider for radiology billing like Sunknowledge.
Being one of the most popular radiology billing outsourcing companies in the US, Sunknowledge has helped hundreds of practices improve their radiology billing. Ready to transform your billing process? Talk to one of their billing experts today to discover their comprehensive solutions!
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