Cardiology is a growing field, with new therapies, treatments, medical procedures, and diagnosis tools launched regularly. But maintaining smooth RCM operations is complex because of the immense documentation, procedures, and rules. Most cardiology practices suffer from medical billing errors, claim denials, improper documentation, AR management, etc. To keep a cardiology practice healthy, optimizing the RCM is critical.
Cardiology medical billing and coding are considered one of the most challenging disciplines. Analyzing the revenue cycle helps cardiology service providers understand their financial health. If providers don’t understand the importance of RCM, they will lose revenue. This blog explains the top strategies for efficient Cardiology Medical Billing to achieve productivity.
What is cardiology medical billing?
Cardiology billing is a bit more complex than other medical billing systems as it requires accurate documentation for total revenue reimbursement and consistent medical billing audit. Here are the following factors that impact the cardiology billing process:
- Human errors
- Insufficient billing knowledge
- Documentation errors
- Not updated with the compliance
Strategies for efficient cardiology billing
Maintain proper patient information
Data is an essential resource for running a successful cardiology practice. Cardiology providers should collect, analyze, and store information to increase patient satisfaction and help grow the practice. Whether cardiology service providers acquire data from the patient or the referring specialist, checking the patient’s data and insurance eligibility is essential. The eligibility verification needs to be done before the patient’s visit, and follow-up is required from patients to ensure no changes would affect the payment procedure.
Frequent billing audits
Cardiology practice should conduct regular audits to detect the areas and patterns of inaccuracy. Medical billing audits can identify serious billing issues and allows cardiology practice to evaluate staff’s ability. There is a significant reduction in errors if the staff is aware of their surroundings. Medical billing audits on regular basis aid billers, coders, auditors, physicians, and nurses discuss billing flaws and working on solutions. The quality of patient care can be improved with constant communication. Accuracy in documentation and rectification of errors increases the overall quality of claims.
Leveraging technology
The use of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, and cloud is increasing in the healthcare RCM sector. Digital payment gateways, advance reporting, electronic claim submission, and more plays a significant role in the RCM process. Cardiology practice should use the right digital tools to communicate with patients and streamline their RCM. They should leverage technology to perform most tasks like claims submission, AR follow-up, appointment scheduling, bill payments, etc. Automation while performing these tasks will save considerable time for them which can be used to provide better care to patients.
Take Prior Authorization
Prior Authorization has a signification role in cardiology billing. It serves as a growth point while streamlining the revenue cycle management for a practice. To ensure timely payments, cardiology practice must get approval from payers before providing a particular medicine or treatment. If PA is not taken from payers RCM process gets drastically hampered. Taking timely PA will aid cardiology practice to minimize billing hassles and focus more on other essential tasks.
Implement the use of EHR
Cardiology practice frequently sees changes in medical billing processes. Cardiology billers should thoroughly rectify and use appropriate documentation to ensure patient care is not hampered and that all procedures are properly coded and billed. Physical health records are prone to errors and are inefficient. EHRs permit real-time document keeping, which reduces document backlogs. The medical billing software uses EHRs and automatically saves all the recent updates. This aids cardiology providers in staying updated with the latest rules and working accordingly to increase their clean claim ratio.
Simplify billing system
Cardiology billing issues are the common reason for payment delays. Patients often need clarification when they see unwanted or complicated terms & conditions in their medical bills. RCM process also gets affected if there is a billing conflict with patients or payers. Cardiology service providers should restructure their billing in a simplified manner with zero errors. Simplified billing helps cardiology practice achieve better outcomes and payments.
Check uncollected debts
Old debts are a significant source of cash flow for a cardiology practice. Many practices have thousands of dollars lost if they are not thorough with collecting old debts. Leveraging machine learning and AI aids cardiology service providers in knowing the uncollected debts and working efficiently to manage them.
Conclusion
Healthcare billing is moving toward digital transformation, and cardiology service providers face many challenges, i.e., maintaining a smooth RCM process, collecting and organizing clinical data, streamlining online payment collection, and more. It is the correct time for cardiology service providers to start using modern technologies like AI, ML, RPA, and more to stay successful in the market. Plutus Health provides automation-driven RCM processes and focuses on delivering quality services to clients.
Author Bio:
Mira Edorra holds a Ph.D. in medical science. She has been assisting healthcare organizations for 15+ years. She is specialized in Cardiology Billing and Coding Services and knows cutting-edge technologies that can be leveraged to provide optimum results. In her free time, she likes to read books and do gardening.
