Accounts Receivable Follow-Up Service
Accounts Receivable Follow-Up Services
Accounts receivable follow-up process in a healthcare organization is responsible for looking after denied claims and reopening them to receive maximum reimbursement from the insurance companies
What is Account Receivable Follow-Up?
Account Receivable Management (AR) is a dedicated process of collecting due payments by the means of follow-up to avoid delays in the revenue and step up the cash influx. Healthcare organizations often face challenges like long receivable cycles, delays in revenue, and denied claims, that require AR follow-up services. By outsourcing account receivable follow-up services to a reliable & experienced service provider, it can overcome these challenges, reduce overhead costs, and notably save on manpower.
How does Account Receivable follow-up team help you?
- Ensuring maximum reimbursement
- Constant scheduled follow up
- Deals with most difficult accounts to close.
- Strong knowledge of Medicaid, Medicare processing
- Understanding of most commercial payers
- Execution of counteractive measures taken after in-depth A/R Analysis.
The 3 Stages of Medical Billing A/R Follow-up
- Stage 1: Initial Evaluation
This stage involves the identification and analysis of the claims listed on the A/R aging report. The team reviews the provider’s policy and identifies which claims need to be adjusted off.
- Stage 2: Analysis and Prioritizing
This phase is initiated once the claims are identified which are marked as uncollectible or for claims where the carrier has not paid according to its contracted rate with the healthcare provider.
- Stage 3: Collection
The claims identified to be within the filing limit of the carrier are re-filed after verifying all the necessary billing information such as claims processing address and conformation to other medical billing rules. After completing the posting of payment details for outstanding claims, patient bills are generated as per the client guidelines and then followed up with the patients for payments.
- Roles and Responsibilities of A/R Specialists
There is an immense amount of work to get done before the doctor can demand an amount from the insurance company. Idyllically, an Account receivable team comprises of two departments;
- Follow up
- Analytics
They are responsible for studying and analyzing denied claims as well as unfinished payments. Even more, in case any claim is found to bear any coding error. The team corrects this particular error and then resubmits the claim. The team on the other hand constantly communicates with the patients, insurance firms, and healthcare service providers and take necessary actions based on their responses or feedback. The skills and quality of services rendered by the team eventually assist in determining the overall financial health of the healthcare practice.
6 Reasons Why A/R Follow-up is Important in Medical Billing Process
The financial stability of any healthcare service provider is highly dependent on maintaining a positive cash flow. The hospital has to maintain a steady flow of revenue to cover expenses so as to provide patient care services, and the A/R department ensures this is taken care of.
A/R follow-up helps all hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, etc. to recover the over-due payments without any hassle. When there is a team which is constantly involved in the claims follow-up procedure, it becomes easier for the healthcare providers to receive payments on time.
The primary objective of A/R management is to minimize the amount of time that accounts are allowed to remain outstanding. The team tracks accounts that have not been paid, assesses a suitable action required to secure payment, and implements procedures for secure payment.
The biggest reason for delay in payments is due to the claim not being received. This usually happens when paper claims are lost. To avoid this, it is wise to send the claims in the electronic form. If the claim has been followed-up and you are aware that the claim hasn’t been received, then it becomes easier to send another request for the claim soon.
Depending on the denial reason, you can actually send a new claim request with the required corrections made. By calling the insurance companies and finding out the denial reason instead of waiting for the denial reason on mail, the A/R department can ensure that all claims are followed through till the end.
Sometimes claims are kept pending for a certain amount of time due to additional information needed for the member. By following-up properly the A/R team can inform the member about the situation and then a suitable action is taken so that the process can be sped up.