The Secret To Gaining an Extra 2 Hours a Day
Recently, we’ve been working with a two-doctor, multi-specialty hybrid practice where 70% of their income comes from insurance billing and 30% comes from subscriptions.
They’d been bursting at the seams with patients when their long-time office administrator and very experienced biller announced she was moved away due to her husband’s promotion and relocation. She left with a month’s notice. The doctors were able to find a replacement, but the new manager, whom we’ll call Deborah, was less experienced, and they acknowledged to her that she would be “inheriting a mess.”
She realized immediately that she had two jobs instead of one—and both were equally demanding. The insurance billing for approximately 50 patients a day was as time consuming as getting the patients seen and out the door. She told me: “It was taking me until 10:00 p.m. each night to file claims. There was zero time during the day for posting payments (which she was doing over the weekend), and no time for payer follow up”.
We spoke again after a few weeks, and the first thing she asked was if I thought she should hire full-time biller. “Great question!” I said.
We discussed whether or not the practice could afford a full-time biller with only two docs and one NP generating revenue. The answer was no, but the stress of coding and filing 45 to 50 claims each day was taking a toll and causing Deborah’s other work to suffer.
We discussed the potential benefits of letting PracticeSuite take over some of the billing. Deborah would avoid the time spent on employee search, onboarding, and training; and I was convinced that apart from a miracle, no one she found would be as knowledgeable as our team of seasoned billing experts. There was also the potential nightmare of hiring the wrong person and having to do it all over again.
After some discussion, her docs agreed that having PracticeSuite handle the insurance billing was the best way to maximize their present situation as it allowed them to scale—but do so affordably.
After the onboarding process, they commented on how quickly PracticeSuite files claims, handles rejections, avoids denials and sends appeals, posts payments, and manages patient statements. We even cleared up the A/R backlog that had accumulated during the transition.
Another surprise to Deborah was that because our team was operating behind the scenes within their actual software account, it was like having her own billing department right there in the office with her. The chat and inter-office communication features made her feel like she had unencumbered free access to her dedicated account manager and billing staff.
Recently Deborah agreed that, for the same amount they would have spent on a full- time biller, she acquired an entire billing department that gives her the hours she needs each day to manage staff, keep patients flowing, and run the practice at top efficiency.
