Clean Claims Rate
What steps can your organization take to improve your clean claims rate?
As a nation, we are facing a unique time in the world of healthcare where value-based healthcare determines how a hospital gets paid, and value is priority, it's no longer an option for hospitals to lose potentially millions of dollars due to faulty claims denials. Therefore, submitting clean claims that do not result in denial is the most effective defense your facility has against lost revenue due to fault claims submissions. Just like preventative medicine saves money by preventing medical problems before they occur, submitting accurate billing information the first time around is a more effective way to secure revenue rather than dealing with claims
…show more content…
While the measures are in place to improve communication, efficiencies and care-coordination among providers, bundled payments can also cause claims denials. This happens because the way bundled payments work is that all the services a patient receives from the physician, the specialist, the hospital, medical services, and the care provided is lumped into one fee. Therefore, any specialist that worked on the case must receive their payment from that bundled payment, and if the hospital attempts to bill for the specialist service separately, the result will be a denied claim.
2. Know the Ins and Outs of Medical Necessity
As defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), medically necessary is “healthcare services or supplies needed to prevent, diagnose, or treat an illness, injury, condition, disease, or its symptoms and that meet accepted standards of medicine.”
Most healthcare plans only cover services when there has been a demonstrated need or medical necessity, established by clear, consistent and concise documentation with relevant diagnosis. However, sometimes it's not always clear whether a patient's conditions meet the established criteria for medical
…show more content…
Any missing data, even the smallest human error, can lead to claim rejection. Technology is available to eliminate the manual approaches to verify eligibility and authorization, which are ridden with opportunity for simple error and require time-consuming processes of calling payers or searching their websites for the appropriate information.
The goal of a robust eligibility verification electronic system is to verify appropriate eligibility information before services are rendered, in real-time while the patient is still present in order to collect co-pays and deductibles before services are rendered. SSI Eligibility enables providers to verify accurate insurance benefits and coverage to allow for successful pre-service payment collection and accurate patient registration, in order to help reduce claims denials.
"The culture has always been, 'They'll fix it on the back-end.' Those days are gone. It's imperative we start at the time of the first patient encounter, which is pre-registration, to ensure the patient information is correct and valid. You can't be effective on the back-end without technology to ensure data quality on the front-end." - Daren Bush, director of patient financial services at Knox Community
Prepare Claims/Check Compliance - The person that bills makes sure the claim meets the standard of compliance.
“The medical necessity criteria for coverage have not been met in this case. As a result, we are unable to
I think I will need your help on this. I think the billing department did the best to tried to correct all the providers coding errors so we can get paid correctly for all these services. I'm asking for some help on the clinical side and I just receive as a response I can't or she can't. I know that you will be available to found the best way to handle this. We can discuss over the phone later if you wants.
You are letting the provider know what the patient chief complaint or reasoning is to be seen at the office that day. All information the patient has prior will be beneficial for the process of the claim.
There is also something known as the coverage gap. For some plans, a patient can reach a
Accelerating cash collections at the point of service has never been more critical than it is today. Sophisticated accounting tools that enable providers to analyze patient utilization and outcomes help practice managers monitor payer performance and evaluate external contracts effectively. Growing financial pressure to strive toward more efficient claims flow through the revenue cycle means every provider must search for innovative tools to overcome the challenges.
The careful documentation and subsequent billing process within the course of a patient’s care is an important piece within the healthcare system as a whole. Proper documentation in a patient’s chart relating to any service or procedure is not only important for this patient’s future medical care, but for the facility to receive an accurate reimbursement for the services provided. Reimbursement is affected by every department within the hospital. Healthcare is a business in the long run, and inaccuracies within the reimbursement process will affect the financial stability of the hospital. If a department is mismanaging reimbursement data it could result
Once the patient comes through the door payment for services should be top of mind. All copayments and deductibles collected and any other non-covered expenses billable to the patient. The correct information is gathered and if all is handled initially properly within in the cycle the claim can go the workflow and payment received with minimum effort by human hands.
Responsible coder collects post and manages account payments, submitting claims and keeping in touch with insurance companies. If patient information is coded incorrectly, or incomplete it could leave an impact that can be brought to a claim. Inaccuracy in patient information can lead to denials, none payment and investigation. It is important to get all the details right by verifying insurance coverage properly. Make sure that the patient’s name is spelled correctly, date of birth and sex of the patient are correct; and most important be sure that the policy number is valid.0verall before claims are sent, documentation should be in order and the claim should be checked for completeness and accuracy.
Some estimate that the federal government loses 30 percent of every dollar it spends on medical claims, due to medical billing mistakes and fraud. With so many loopholes and regulations surrounding Medicare, it is impossible for one person to know every nuance. However, constant diligence and ethical practices are a cornerstone of catching and preventing medical billing mistakes.
It has only been within the last five years that health information management (HIM) has experienced exponential changes, due to the healthcare reform. The electronic health record (EHR) is connected to health information exchanges and other systems of interoperability. The timely completion of charts, coding and release of information (ROI) has become much more efficient with the electronic record. Traditional HIM functions will just be transformed and will always be an integral part of successful patient care. Professionals must be flexible and willing to adapt and even generate change. As Health Information Technology continues to evolve, so will the roles
Rather than having the other claims adjusted, the provider insisted that we not look into the matter further because they did not want us to take back any money. Sadly this is just one example of fraud; it is not uncommon to see providers change the coding of claims to get something that they know should not be paid to process for payment. Cracking down on this type of fraud will reduce the amount of money paid out on claims by insurance carriers. Since claims payments directly affect the cost of insurance, this will also help in lowering premiums.
According to Chtourou (2013), a CDI program focuses on enhancing the accuracy of clinical documentation quality which requires a huge input from CDI specialists, heath information management professionals, coders and clinicians to collaborate together to review the quality of documentation reported/captured in order to ensure accuracy and complete of patient’s clinical encounter. As a healthcare provider, medical records that are incomplete or inaccurate often times, compromise the quality of care reporting and inevitably affect the clinical decision support system of the organization including the accuracy of reimbursement. This is reasonable since the CDI program has emerged as a new paradigm to meet the changing needs of maintaining a sound health record documentation across the healthcare industry (Hauger, 2014). Most of the CDI programs have to a great extent concentrated on boosting the Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs) installments by securing clinical documentation to support medical complications and co-morbidities (Hauger, 2014).
“This article discusses how Medicare Carriers and Fiscal Intermediaries use coverage determinations to establish medical necessity. When the condition(s) of a patient are expected to not meet medical necessity requirements for a test, procedure, or service, the provider has the obligation under the
Responsible coder collects post and manages account payments, submitting claims and keeping in touch with insurance companies. If patient information is coded incorrectly or incomplete it could leave an impact that can be brought to a claim. Inaccuracy in patient information can leads to denials, none payment and investigation. It is important to get all the details right by verifying insurance coverage properly. Make sure that the patient’s name is spelled correctly, date of birth and sex of patient are correct; and most important be sure that the policy number is valid.0verall before claims are sent, documentation should be in order and the claim should be checked for completeness and accuracy.