Successfully managing insurance reimbursements is the secret strategy of profitable optometric practices. However, many practices are still struggling to master the claims lifecycle to manage every step of the way.
Below are a few optometric billing tips to improve your claims management techniques and maximize profit.
4 Tips for Reducing Optometric Billing Errors
Pull Eligibility Early
One tip to eliminate many of the reasons for claim denials is to pull patient eligibility at least two days before the patient’s appointment. Pulling coverage for each patient can reduce the chance of a claim being denied from a payer not covering services or supporting the frequency of services.
Monitor for Rejections
One of the main reasons claims go unpaid is because rejections get lost in the biller’s inbox. When your optometry biller can keep track of the rejected claims and resolve and resubmit them before the timely filing deadline passes, there is a better chance of the payer accepting the claim.
Monitoring your rejections will reduce the chances of your practice missing money from denied claims. Stay on top of your rejections and prioritize them so you can get them out the door as soon as your receive them.
Track Performance
Your optometric practice is a business. For this reason, there are a lot of benchmarks that you should track to ensure that you’re growing your practice and can keep the lights on and doors open.
Why does this change when it comes to tracking the performance of your insurance claims? Tracking your optometric billing metrics will help you identify how long it takes a claim to be accepted, the most common reason for claim rejections in your practice, and the income generated from insurance claims. This type of information is vital to creating a stronger claims management strategy and reducing the errors caused by common claim denials.
Use Tools
Managing paper insurance claims is a painstaking and error-prone task. With the complexities of manually tracking a claim by calling each payer, it’s common for claims to go unpaid due to the timely filing deadline expiring or claims getting lost.
Using the right billing tools for you practice will give you the ability to submit, track, and manage your insurance claims electronically so you can reconcile more claims while saving time and reducing errors. Many claim management solutions make managing the claim lifecycle easier, and give you access to thousands of payers all from one location.
For more information on avoiding optometric billing errors, download our Insurance Revenue Kit.
Originally Published: May 1, 2017