What is Payment Posting in Medical Billing?
Payment posting in medical billing gives a clear picture of the practice's financial status and allows you to view the cash details on a day-to-day basis. Using appropriate medical billing software and consistently recording the various payments is also known as payment posting. It provides a snapshot of the Healthcare’s image of the entire insurance EOBs and complete payments remitted from the patients along with the ERAs insurance checks. Comparative evaluation is a must for identifying revenue leaks to resolve them promptly.
The Importance Of Accurate Payment Posting For Revenue Cycle Management.
Just imagine that on a particular afternoon, one of your excellent employees accidentally entered 3003 dollars instead of 303 dollars while working on filing the claims, and the claim made its way to the medical billing process undetected. Carelessly missed issues failed to get identified through double checking, and failure to resolve these errors leads to critical problems. The patient gets burdened upon receiving such an enormous bill, the patient is upset, and their confidence in the Healthcare is affected.
Payment posting in medical billing is one of the most crucial and significant parts of any Healthcare revenue management cycle (RCM) to remain successful while maintaining a seamless and healthy revenue. It can directly impact the various other steps of RCM and affect the daily revenue stream, and cause problems. This crucial step allows many potential issues to be promptly identified and resolved to avoid simple mistakes.
Significance of Payment Posting Process for Revenue Cycle Management
In any case of either in-house billing or third-party billing, the payment posting process is one of the most significant parts of any healthcare’s revenue cycle management. When done right, and when you ensure to follow the practice’s day-to-day trends, it helps to accurately identify the chances of promptly enhancing the revenue.
A meticulous Payment posting process is vital to drive more revenue for any healthcare organization. Let us discuss in this blog some of the significant factors:
1. Gives a clear snapshot of the financial status:
Any business needs to have a clear idea about how much revenue can be generated before the end of every month. Hence it is paramount to monitor the accounts receivables, which will ensure efficient planning of the expenses by the healthcare providers. While handling the revenue cycle management services of the client, it is vital to carry out with the aid of accurate payment posting services through precise monitoring to be sure of their financial stability and positioning.
2. Aids in recognizing the issues in billing and coding:
Surprisingly, the revenue cycle management companies identify the core issues of their billing and coding processes by carefully examining the posted payments. Since payment posting is not restricted to posting payments alone but comprises denials and adjustments as well, hence, it sheds light on payer-specific guidelines for coding and billing.
3. Avoid incorrect patient statements:
While recording the claim values, even a minor error can cause erroneous patient statements. The medical practice will fail to drive revenue when the staff enters a lesser claim value than the actual claim value. Sometimes, they tend to record a greater claim value than the real claim value leading to claim denials by the payer due to the amplified values, or they will make the patient pay an excessive amount.
The accurate balance to be collected from the patient is determined when the claims are precisely posted towards the co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles.
4. Precisely process the claims for secondary payers:
While processing the claims, when the primary payers ensure to post the payments accurately, it greatly benefits the secondary or tertiary payers to determine the due to be billed while simultaneously averting denials by the secondary payers.
5. Aids to seamlessly resolve the denials:
It is common for human errors and minor mistakes to occur while filing the claims leading to denials. Getting the claims analyzed, revised and appealed is costly and tedious. When a revenue cycle management company erroneously files a claim causing a rejection, it costs about $188 for the client to appeal the claim. Such situations could be avoided by thoroughly checking to identify the errors before they get filed. This step is made simple with an accurate Payment posting process, allowing you to file the claims while maintaining a lesser AR cycle confidently.
Tips for Enhancing the Efficiency of RCM with Payment Posting in Medical Billing:
By following the below effective tips, you can seamlessly enhance the efficiency of your RCM and enjoy consistent and healthy revenue.
• Ensure that the payments match the data of the EOBs and ERAs.
• Stay clear of errors in the billing cycle by instantly reporting to the management in case the denials for the specific medical services that aren’t covered by insurance or if they require prior authorization.
• Promptly identify denials and ensure they get analyzed and revised for re-submitting the same to the payers who are responsible.
• Ensure to carry over the detected dues to the patient responsibility through quicker and more precise patient billing.
• Swiftly process the write-offs as soon as an issue is detected before passed on to the management. While doing so, ensure to process the adjustments after determining the contractual adjustments thoroughly.
OVERVIEW:
Choosing smarter ways to enhance the revenue flow and recognizing the latest trends is made simple with an accurate Payment posting process. This process provides useful data for analysis for the revenue cycle management companies. It becomes a significant part of the RCM to drive healthy revenue for the business to thrive.