The road to post-pandemic recovery is steep and long, from healthcare workforce shortages to record inflation rates. And with every emerging obstacle, it’s becoming more apparent that eliminating inefficiencies is more crucial now than ever, while poor practice management has never been more consequential.

Every step you make must be towards streamlining your workflows and improving operational efficiency so you can achieve more with as little time, money, and personnel as possible.

An Opportunity to Turn Things Around

While the sheer extent of the challenges hounding independent practices today can be overwhelming, this could be a pivotal moment for your practice. As industry disruptions abound, you can take the opportunity to implement adaptive changes in your practice that could have lasting positive effects.

From optimizing your workflows to maximizing payment collections, here are five steps to take to improve your practice’s overall performance:

1. Never Leave Co-Pay Uncollected

According to a 2017 Black Book survey, 83% of small practices consider slow patient payments as their top billing challenge. Second on the list is communicating to patients what they owe.

To avoid delayed and defaulted payments, collect co-pays upfront whenever possible. However, if a patient cannot cover the upfront cost immediately, be sure to document their balance correctly and follow up with them periodically.

The fact that 35% of a healthcare organization’s revenue comes from patient payments makes strengthening your co-pay collection that much more vital. Failing to capitalize on this revenue stream could cut into your bottom line. Make sure to offer as many payment options as possible, from cash to credit card transactions. Making the payment experience more convenient for your patients makes a huge difference.

It also pays to digitize your balance ledger and automate patient communications to save your staff from the grueling work. Sophisticated systems like billrMD allow you to track and generate a comprehensive summary of a patient’s pending balance, allowing you to stay on top of your finances without the hassle.

2. Use a Good Scheduling System

If your practice still relies on a manual scheduling system, you are due for a much-needed upgrade. Automating your scheduling workflow using a full-featured, reliable system can do wonders for your practice’s overall performance.

Imagine having all scheduling information and functionalities in one place; it’ll save your front desk staff a lot of time shuffling through different pages and windows. This improved efficiency in one area of your daily workflow will cascade down to other areas of your practice.

An intuitive scheduling system like billrMD puts the user front and center, giving you control over how you want to view your calendar—whether daily, weekly, or monthly. It also allows you to conveniently transition to other tasks like automatically sending appointment reminders, checking insurance eligibility, and other scheduling-related functions.

3. Improve Billing & Coding

Medical claims denial rates have risen to 23% since 2016—an alarming trend that has left hospital executives and industry leaders scrambling to look for viable solutions. Ironically though, most, if not all, of the top reasons for claims rejections are easily preventable.

One of the most common reasons a claim is denied is clerical errors, accounting for 61% of initial submission denials and 42% of all denial write-offs. All it takes is a missing modifier, an incorrect ICD code, or a misspelled name for payers to deny your claims.

While it’s virtually impossible to bring your denial rates down to zero, reducing your current numbers even by a fraction can substantially impact your bottom line.

4. Use Data Analytics

Numbers, as they say, don’t lie. That’s why data plays a crucial role in your practice’s growth. Gathering data from key areas of your operations will give you a bird’s eye view of how your practice is performing.

However, data gathering is a tedious and time-consuming process requiring considerable time and manpower. But thanks to platforms with integrated data analytics like billrMD, you can generate a comprehensive summary of your practice’s key performance indicators (KPIs) with a click. Access a repository of reliable, vital information right at your fingertips.

Generating comprehensive reports simplifies complex and often convoluted data sets for easier understanding and analysis. And when you have an accurate, simplified view of your practice’s overall performance, you can make better-informed decisions to address the issues bogging your practice down.

5. Employ Remote Staff Workers

No software, regardless of how bleeding-edge, can address your practice’s productivity challenges without the right billing team to complement it. Contrary to popular belief, though, you don’t need to spend a fortune to build a competent team.

With billrMD’s remote staffing services, you can employ the best talent across the globe without the added overhead costs. Based on your unique needs, billrMD matches your practice with a trusted independent billing company from its network of service providers. These partner companies will provide you with an expert biller from their pool of remote staff workers with years of experience in U.S. medical billing processes.

Remote staffing is a more efficient alternative to traditional, in-person hiring because you don’t have to spend time and money on training, equipment, and office space. Several studies prove that remote workers tend to be more productive than on-site employees, so you can have more hands on deck and increase revenue without breaking the bank.

One System to Do It All

Improving your practice’s productivity requires a holistic approach. Since the level of productivity in one area of your practice affects all others, you need to ensure that you’re addressing issues across all of your workflows in one fell swoop. You need software that does it all in one comprehensive platform.

As a practice management and medical billing solution, billrMD equips your practice with all the tools you need to make the administrative and financial management side of your operations as efficient as possible.

Experts predict even more industry disruption in the months and years to come. Hence, now’s not the time to rest on your laurels. Every move dictates your practice’s future, so you can either maintain things as they are or adapt to modern healthcare needs and demands.