A mental health practice emerges as a core component of the healthcare industry. As the world focuses more on mental health being, medical practices need to optimize their practice revenue. This is crucial, as when practitioners are free from financial burden, only then can they focus on their patients’s health. Moreover, maximizing revenue collection is also significant to expand patient coverage, which ultimately helps mental health billing services to grow exponentially.
This blog helps healthcare providers overcome the hurdles they face during revenue cycle management. It explains seven proven strategies to optimize RCM and maximize mental health practice revenue.
Do You Know?
A Market Research Report by Fortune Business Insights, reveals that the U.S Mental health market size is expected to grow by $99.40 billion in 2028.
Understanding Mental Health Revenue Cycle Management
Mental health revenue cycle management (RCM) is the process which covers the whole revenue generation of a healthcare facility. It involves a range of both administrative and financial activities, including those designed to boost revenues, reduce billing inaccuracies, and achieve conformity with healthcare rules and regulations. The mental health RCM includes patient registration, insurance verification, claim submission, coding, billing, and payment processing.
Top 7 Mental Health Strategies to Maximize Reimbursement
Here are the most effective and proven strategies that can help you improve the financial health of your healthcare facility.
Introduce Automation through Advanced Technology
The healthcare industry has faced tremendous advancement in the past few years. Automation, such as the integration of electronic health records (EHR), helps streamline operations such as the verification process. Implementation of advanced software reduces the margin of error during claim submission. Thus, it enhances accuracy and improves cash flow. Furthermore, automation allows the medical staff to work only on patient care.
Track Revenue Cycle Performance
Tracking revenue cycle performance is crucial for mental health doctors because it directly impacts the financial status of the healthcare facility. The best strategy to maximize the results includes the implementation of advanced data collection systems and the utilization of practice management software to track and monitor key performance indicators (KPI). Moreover, benchmarking the healthcare practice’s performance with the industry standards also helps the physician to identify the areas of improvement.
Collect the Patient’s Financial Share in Advance
Making the patients pay in advance is one of the most effective strategies to stabilize the revenue cycle. Healthcare providers need to implement point-of-service (POS) or pre-service payment options. Providers must clearly communicate with the patients about their financial obligations, such as co-payments, deductibles, etc. This not only reduces the risk associated with finance, but it also streamlines the entire billing process.
Enhancing Coding Accuracy
Medical Codes synchronized with the services provided to patients are the major factor contributing to the maximum revenue collection. Healthcare providers need to make sure that coders stay updated with the latest guidelines set by regulatory bodies. Moreover, the integration of coding software can also assist in removing coding errors and enhance accuracy. This, in turn, reduces claim denials and, hence, maximizes reimbursement rates.
Optimize Insurance Contracts
Optimizing insurance contracts is another successful strategy for mental health providers to increase reimbursement. Regular audits by healthcare providers can improve the existing contracts by finding room for improvement. Practitioners can achieve this by negotiating higher reimbursement rates, expanding insurance coverage, and streamlining claim process. Furthermore, the healthcare provider needs to be in touch with the insurance companies. This helps them to be aware of any changes in insurance policies and enables them to make timely decisions.
Invest in Marketing and Promotions
In the world of the media industry, healthcare physicians can grab the attention of new clients through social media promotions, websites, advertisements, optimized content, etc. In addition, offering promotional discounts, hosting informative events, and offering referral incentives can further engage clients to seek services from your mental healthcare facility. So, one of the effective strategies for physicians to increase revenue collection is through investment in marketing and promotion.
Improved Patient Collection
Patient collection is one of the biggest contributors to healthcare facility revenue. Practitioners need to take several important steps to improve payment collection, such as offering flexible payment options, implementing clear and transparent billing practices, and communicating with patients about their financial responsibilities. Providers need to make sure that the patients are aware of all the financial terms, such as co-payments, deductibles, etc. By improving patient collection, mental health practices can improve cash flow, which in turn reduces accounts receivable.
The implementation of all these 7 strategies can effectively optimize the financial health of mental healthcare facilities.
5 Tips to Streamline RCM for Mental Health Practice
Here are the key takeaways regarding revenue cycle management (RCM) for mental health practices:
Efficient Processes:
Effective scheduling, registration, and billing procedures play the main role in streamlining revenue cycle management.
Insurance Verification:
Ensure that you verify patients insurance before appointments to avoid claim denials and ensure accurate billing.
Accurate Documentation and Coding:
To ensure your documentation and coding of all the clinical services provided during therapy sessions are accurate to get maximum reimbursement and comply with the coding guidelines.
Timely Claims Submission:
To ensure timely reimbursement and prevent revenue cycle delays, ensure the timely submission of claims to insurance payers.
Billing Transparency:
Fix clear billing policies, send transparent billing statements, and implement effective collection practices to reduce open balances and increase patient satisfaction.
Denial Management:
Focus on proactive management of claim denials, root cause identification, and pursuing appeals to recover denied revenue that ultimately contributes to revenue cycle efficiency.
Financial Reporting:
Continuously track KPIs, examine revenue growth rates, and produce financial reports to know the financial condition of the practice and make sound judgments.
By highlighting the main points mentioned above, mental health organizations can simplify their management processes, enhance income generation, and make their operations financially viable as they deliver appropriate care to patients.
Conclusion
To summarize, maximizing mental health practice revenue is possible through the implementation of some effective strategies. This includes tracking revenue cycle performance, collecting the patient’s financial shares in advance, introducing automation, and enhancing coding accuracy. In addition, optimizing insurance contracts, investing in marketing and promotion, and improving patient collection also play a crucial role in optimizing revenue cycle management.
Outsourcing to a renowned billing company such as Medheave Medical Billing can offer multiple benefits for achieving financial success. This includes improved revenue cycle management, cost savings, reduced billing errors and claim denials, access to advanced technology, and compliance with regulatory bodies. Partnering with Medheave improves cash flow and reduces the administrative burden on healthcare providers. Mental health practitioners can channel all their energy to satisfy their patients. Sign up today for error-free mental health services.