High Deductible Plans and Patient Receivables

With the popularity of high deductible insurance plans it is now more important than ever to manage your patient receivables.  By the time charges are entered and submitted, the EOB is processed, and patient bills are generated, it could take 30 to 60 days for you to receive payment for a service provided.  The following are a few things to keep in mind when managing your staff’s workflow. 

Enter charges and submit claims in a timely manner

Gathering and sending insurance claims is an easy process.  We recommend that you send claims bi-weekly if not every day.

Use EFT – Electronic Funds Transfer

Use of EFT will allow your payments to be deposited at your bank much faster than postal mail to your office and staff depositing them manually.

Use ERA and Auto Posting

Auto Posting is a quick and easy way to post payments against outstanding claims.  In the case of high deductible plans a zero payment is added (if the deductible checkbox is selected) which moves the amount due to the next responsibility, usually the patient.

Enter payments received via postal mail as soon as possible

It doesn’t make sense to send a patient statement for a balance that has already been paid but not yet posted.  Make it a habit to post checks within 24 hours of receipt.

Create Patient Statements frequently

If you are like most practices and using EPS – Electronic Patient Statements – it is easy to create a batch, review them on the screen, and submit the file for processing.  No stuffing envelopes, applying postage and leaving for the postal worker to pick up.  If batches are created more often there will be fewer statements in each batch and patient calls will be staggered as well.  We recommend that you send patient statement batches bi-weekly if not every day.