Nitin Chhoda discusses the current status of healthcare insurance in the country and how practice management, patients, as well as the insurance companies deal with the situation.

Healthcare is a complicated and convoluted process in the U.S. that involves patients, practitioners, insurance providers and a multitude of clearinghouses established specifically for processing, verifying and paying claims.

Each entity has its own set of rules, regulations and protocols governing covered expenses and how reimbursement claims must be submitted. The system has patients confused and healthcare providers fighting for revenues.

The multi-tiered healthcare system in the U.S. is a slow and ponderous process, but one that’s essential for the financial stability of practices and to ease the pain and suffering of patients. Due to the many facets of the industry, it can leave even insured patients with insufficient coverage or none when they need it most, while clinicians are buried in a mountain of paperwork and rejected claims.

Reactive healthcare is the new normal

Until recently, healthcare was a reactive system focused on treating ailments and illnesses as they appeared.  The beginning of the 21^st century saw a shift in the thinking of insurance company executives toward preventative measures and ways for clients to avoid becoming ill or developing conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

It’s a high goal that can mitigate a wide range of expensive healthcare problems, but doesn’t factor in variables such as genetic predispositions, or work and environmental elements. It’s a system that penalizes the elderly, infirm and those experiencing ongoing health issues or who require extensive treatment.

Insurance creates conundrums for the insured

When the Affordable Health Care Act is fully implemented, millions of previously uninsured individuals will have access to a core group of services through insurance policies obtained through their employment or a healthcare practice management insurance exchange.

Unfortunately, as insurance companies increase deductibles, co-pays and other costs, patients are delaying or failing to seek treatment and practitioners are experiencing distinct drops in revenues.

Today’s healthcare insurance may not cover specific services patients need or may require thousands in out-of-pocket costs clients can’t afford.

Healthcare insurance providers are forcing patients to shoulder more of the cost burden and setting limitations on costs and treatments. The result is that many clients that have insurance are no better off than those without.

Creating revenue strategies is a multi-pronged process

To ensure sufficient cash flow, clinicians must develop and implement strategic plans to contract with the best paying providers and examine client insurance coverage closely before beginning treatment. In some instances, clinicians may need to refer patients to other facilities or resources to obtain whatever treatment is available.

The technology embodied in an electronic medical record (EMR) system is a clinician’s best friend for verifying insurance, providing enhanced documentation and submitting reimbursement claims.

EMRs empower practitioners, providing them with the tools to manage client treatment needs against their insurance coverage.

EMRs can identify claims that may pose potential problems, while offering electronic reimbursement submissions to facilitate payment turnaround times.

The structure of the healthcare system in the U.S. is difficult to navigate for patients and practitioners and the new direction being taken by insurance companies is actually narrowing options for the insured and creating financial hardships for practice owners. To remain solvent, clinicians will be required to make hard decisions about the patients they treat, the insurance they accept and the providers with which they contract.

To manage a practice, it’s important to adopt a multi-faceted approach that consists of four ‘pillars’. This allows for a more efficient, streamlined and successful practice, according to Nitin Chhoda.

Managing a healthcare practice management is a lot like running other small businesses, except for a few glaring differences.

In general, a small business can predict how often and how well they will be compensated for products or services.

This is because the client or customer who received the products or services is the same as the payer. In healthcare practice management, the payer is often a third party, in the form of a health insurance company or a governmental program.

To ensure that a medical practice is financially secure, healthcare practice management must take a 4-pronged approached; everything within the practice needs to be integrated with the rest of the practice. Most importantly, scheduling, documentation, billing, and marketing must all be integrated to get the most efficiency and productivity from the staff.

Start with Scheduling

Making your scheduling of healthcare practice management efficient is fairly obvious; for every open appointment slot of each day, there should be a patient coming in to the clinic. The problems arise when there are either not enough patients or patients cancel appointments and the slots are never filled.

Historically, medical practices haven’t had much of a choice when it came to making the scheduling process more efficient or precise. But with technological advances, scheduling has evolved so that filling slots is easier and tracking patient visits becomes automated.

Scheduling and Marketing

To get the most from your schedule, it turns out that the healthcare practice management will have to do some marketing. Usually this means projecting a certain image to the general public and attempting to entice patients to come to your practice rather than alternatives.

Marketing is also important as patients move through the system, and encouraging referrals from current patients should be part of the healthcare practice management plan. Without good marketing, it will be hard to keep your schedule full.

Scheduling and Documentation

Of course, usually it is the receptionist who handles both scheduling and the pulling and re-filing of medical records. The responsible healthcare practice management staff member must take the time to look over the schedule and pull the correct records each day.

They must also know when to schedule the next visit based on the clinician’s notes from the current visit. This entire process can be automated and streamlined with current technology.

Documentation and Billing

And the bottom line for any healthcare practice management will be collection of payments from the payer, whether that is the patient or their health insurance company.

Medical billers and coders need access to those medical files, too, and they need to know what the clinician has been doing to help the patient get better.

Integration

By realizing that there are important connections between the four major parts of a practice, healthcare practice management can look for the ways that communication and transfer of information has become inefficient within the practice. Efficiency can only be improved when management is seeing the connections and assessing the performance of each aspect of the practice as it relates to the rest.