Common Problems In AR Follow-Up To Avoid

Poor AR management, limited payment options, and claim denials are common problems many healthcare organizations face. While your AR follow-up team should be filled with experienced staff in managing these issues, the fact remains that they can be challenging to deal with and can significantly affect the organization’s revenue stream. Therefore, we recommend developing and implementing an effective AR follow-up strategy that would help you avoid these common problems.

Poor AR Management

One of the most common issues that many healthcare organizations face is a team with poor communication, coordination, and overall incompetent AR management. However, these employees are the foundation of your practice’s financial well-being. They are key to maximizing your revenue by helping you reduce the number of AR days and ensuring you receive the pay-outs from your claims. Therefore, all employees should be provided advanced, intensive training during the onboarding process to be experienced and skilled in handling their roles and responsibilities. If this isn’t a viable solution for you, you can consider outsourcing from medical billing and revenue cycle management companies like KR Billing Solutions.

High Claims Denial Rate

Claim denials are one of the most common issues every healthcare provider faces due to different trivial errors. These could include wrong medical and equipment codes (thanks to the ever-growing list of coding rules and regulations), misspelled names, mismatched payment amounts, and incorrect numbers. Whatever the reason for the denial may be, it is critical to understand why these claim submissions were rejected in the first place and find the common trends between all of them. Then, develop the right approach to avoid these mistakes in the future. Ideally, every healthcare practice should have a denial rate of 4% and below.

Lack of Control Over Write-Offs

You may not realize it, but your write-off rate could be causing issues for your AR follow-up team. All accounts should be thoroughly evaluated and analyzed before they are written off, as this will significantly affect your amount of receivables. If the write-off is justifiable, one suggestion that could be implemented would be to have these accounts undergo prior authorization and an audit by a supervisor, manager, or a third-party company to control and oversee the process.

Limited Access to Payment Options

One of the biggest reasons you may face severe problems in your AR follow-up could be your lack of payment methods, limiting your patient’s access to their preferred option. Today, most healthcare practices accept a universal range of payment modes, including cash, credit cards, installments, and more. Providing a greater range of choices encourages and allows your patients to pay their dues as soon as possible.

Your Answer to Your AR Follow-Up Problems

Over here at KR Billing Solutions, our role is to provide our clients with innovative and effective solutions to contemporary issues that they face in managing medical billing processes, including AR follow-up. We are here for you at every step of the way to help you overcome the difficulties you are facing and are equipped with the right skills, knowledge, and software to help verify the accuracy of your documentation. After all, we want you to focus on providing your patients with the best quality care.