The healthcare insurance industry is in somewhat of a flux at the moment, which can cause problems for any practices that aren’t paying careful attention to what’s going on. For example, patients are being held more responsible for health insurance costs than insurance payers, which is evidenced by the rising co-payments and deductibles. This can be a problem for medical practices due to the fact that patients tend to pay much slower than insurance payers, which means that if they aren’t careful, their cash flow could decrease.   Preventing Cash Flow Problems Because patients are being forced to pay higher costs, it means that more of your cash flow is dependent on your patients than on insurance companies. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 25% of families have an unpaid healthcare bill, 10% of families have medical bills they can’t pay at all and 20% are on a payment plan to pay off their bills over time. As you can imagine, this could affect your cash flo...

Consistent cash flow is essential to the health of any business. This holds true for medical practices, as well. Maintaining an adequate level of revenue while minimizing the number of claim denials can be a struggle. Unfortunately, claim disputes have a number of associated costs beyond the denied payment. Estimates show that the average medical practice could loose between $30,000 and $80,000 yearly in denied claims and the staffing expense associated with resolving them. Appealing denied claims can be a huge time drain on your staff. In some cases, the process is purposefully designed to discourage the provider. It is for this reason that some 50 to 65 percent of denied claims are never disputed. Bottom line and staffing costs can be exacerbated by deteriorating patient relations. When a patient is receiving bills months after service, they are likely to believe the medical practice is mishandling the billing. Ignore the issue and the same denials are likely to repeat. Staff trainin...