For ABA organizations of any size, providing high-quality care is of the utmost importance. However, many struggle with effectively managing their billing processes, resulting in lost revenue and operational inefficiencies. By optimizing your billing practices, you can streamline your operations, increase your revenue and, as a result, improve the quality of care your organization can offer.
Understanding the Complexities of ABA Billing
The complex nature of medical billing poses many challenges for ABA providers. Oftentimes providers and business owners are under prepared for the intricacies and wealth of information necessary for ethical medical billing practices. Those involved in an organization’s billing workflow must have a great deal of knowledge related to maintaining accurate records, CPT codes, individual funder requirements and regulations, managing claim submissions and denials, tracking authorizations, and more.
Because of the unique nature of billing and the time commitment required, many organizations outsource their billing to a trusted managed billing service provider. Outsourcing billing to an organization with industry-specific expertise can allow you to focus your time and energy on increasing the quality of your services.
Use Technology to Automate Revenue Cycle Management Workflows
Streamlining your billing processes and workflows using technology is one of the most efficient ways your organization can improve your revenue cycle management and subsequently increase revenue.
Achieve optimized billing management with the following strategies.
- Lean on your practice management software for timelier reimbursements.
Manual and disintegrated systems often involve inefficiencies and inaccuries. Records using paper and pen take up more time, meaning less timely reimbursements. Leaning on a practice management software allows your staff to take real-time data, which can then be attached to a claim for quicker submission and subsequent reimbursement. - Automate your revenue cycle management processes.
Billing optimization involves optimizing the entire billing cycle from verification of benefits and authorizations down to claims and accounts receivable. Increase your revenue turnaround time and avoid costly delays due to manual data errors by streamlining each interconnected process, eliminating bottlenecks that slow things down. - Organize claims
Organize your claims to maximize the efficiency of your staff while ensuring claims that need more attention get handled quickly. Maximize your team’s time by focusing on claims that were incorrectly denied rather than focusing on denials resulting from manual process errors. - Submit claims accurately and on time
Submitting claims accurately and on time is vital for the financial health of your organization. Each payor has a required timeline for submitting claims. Waiting too long runs the risk of missing that deadline and thus, being unable to recoup those funds.
Submitting your claims accurately and on time allows you to:
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- Avoid claim rejections with increased accuracy. While some claims denials are inevitable, 90% are avoidable when organizations take preventative strategies to improve accuracy and completeness. Using integrated software to submit claims accurately and on time can significantly reduce your claim rejections.
- Track claim status. Avoid claims getting lost or encountering processing errors. Track the status of your claims to ensure timely reimbursement and identify and remedy errors or claims rejections early on
- Decrease overhead costs. Denials can be time-consuming and costly. When claims are submitted accurately and on time, you can reduce your overhead costs, allowing you to focus more of your efforts on billable activities and improving your client’s care.
- Minimize disruptions to your cash flow. Timely and accurate claim submissions help expedite the reimbursement process, reducing your days in accounts receivable and subsequently improving your cash flow.
- Cut down on team members' administrative time. It can take up significant time manually entering claims data, responding to rejections, and resubmitting claims with accurate information. Using integrated software can substantially reduce this administrative time by ensuring claims are submitted accurately and without delay.
- Track and forecast revenue. The sooner your claim is submitted following rendering of services, the more easily you’ll be able to forecast your organization’s revenue. An ability to forecast revenue is essential for making data-based organizational decisions.
Optimized billing workflows can ensure claims are submitted accurately and efficiently, increasing an organization’s revenue.
However, it is still not uncommon to experience returns or denials from funders. Learn more about how to prevent and manage claims denial with our Claims Denial Prevention Strategies Guide
