As a physician, you’re used to uncovering what is hidden, but to support your work you want your medical billing and practice management to be completely transparent.
If your office processes aren’t solid, you could lose time to treat patients which can reduce patient satisfaction and ultimately, your cash flow. Innovative software programs can help your office staff create methodical office processes that help you run a successful practice.
Managing Bookings
When you’re a practice-based physician, it’s especially important that you stay on top of appointment bookings. Each booking is important to the patient and to you, as you work to follow up on a patient’s medical conditions and report back to other medical providers who may be involved in your patient’s care. Practice management software helps your office staff fill appointments, manage missed appointments, and ensure that your work day flows smoothly. Cloud-based software also enhances communication between multiple offices, making it easier to communicate about patient results and future appointments.
Understanding Your Patients
While staff at a family practice may have more familiarity with a patient, if you are a specialist you may only see patients occasionally. To get to know your patients and track changes over time, you’ll need to be able to access a patient’s health record. An electronic health record allows office staff to access and update patient information quickly and easily, even if the patient last visited your facility months or years ago.
Tracking and Coding
Every medical specialty has its own repertoire of medical codes, the codes used to diagnose and treat illnesses and conditions. If you are a specialist, you have a set of medical procedures codes that are unique to your field of medicine and your procedures must be coded correctly. As the industry transitions between the ICD-9 and ICD-10, it’s particularly important that you have staff trained who can track and properly code your medical billing. Dual-code medical billing software helps ease the transition to the new coding system by helping you focus on the codes your office uses most.
Ensuring Cash Flow
You’ve invested in medical diagnostic equipment such as CT scanners, and your practice must be able to sustain the purchase and maintenance of equipment over time. This means that it’s particularly important to ensure that you have a predictable cash flow in your office. If claims are denied or patients do not pay, office staff need to track these missed payments and determine why they’ve occurred. Medical billing software helps catch errors before they are submitted and helps staff track what went wrong when an error does occur. This allows you to manage your cash flow and sustain expenses for the equipment and staff that keep your office running.
Medical office software can also help you reduce expenses. By providing an electronic, cloud-based reporting system that prompts office personnel to take action, this software helps your practice become more efficient, freeing your staff to spend time on other work rather than looking up a medical code.
Are you working to manage your medical billing and improve the workflow of your office? PracticeSuite can help. Visit us today for a trial version.
