Inside athenaCollectorSM: Consider an EMR for the Right Reasons
Physicians work harder and take more work home than ever before. And they’re always looking for ways to counteract these trends.
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are a hot topic right now. They can save a practice time and money. But they must be implemented for the right reasons.
“Some doctors think EMRs help justify billing higher-level E&M codes, but that is a losing strategy in our opinion,” said Bob Gatewood, athenaCollector Product Manager. “There are real financial reasons to use an EMR – like eliminating paper and supporting P4P revenue, for instance – but upcoding is not one of them.”
If you are looking for ways to recoup lost income from your practice in recent years, first ask yourself: Is my billing process under control? Where does income leak out of the system?
If you cannot answer the following questions quickly and confidently, then start by focusing on your billing process and possible breakdowns:
- Are my panel sizes correct for my specialty, population, and physician income goals?
- Am I getting the most billable revenue from my available time?
- Are all the services I perform being billed at the highest appropriate level?
- Are all insurance claims being paid quickly and accurately?
- Is my staff effective at preventing self-pay accounts receivable by collecting at the time of service?
- Do I have an effective self-pay collections process for balances not collected at the time of service?
- Is my cost to collect in line with industry benchmarks?
- How can I spend less time managing the billing process and still get optimal results?
“To answer these important business questions, you need a consistent, measurable process, a whole lot of data, and the time to analyze it,” said Gatewood. He points to athenahealth clients, who have answers to questions like these at their fingertips.
“When you have your billing process under control, like our athenaCollector clients do, it’s a good time to look at EMR solutions,” he said. “But adding an EMR on top of an out-of-control billing process will not take you in the right direction.”