NEW YORK—Pulling patient benefits ahead of each appointment. How many of you out there are currently doing that in your eyecare practice? If we had to guess, it’s probably a pretty good split. For those of you not pulling patient benefits ahead of time, it’s likely to do with staff bandwidth and not having the time or resources to efficiently pull benefits prior to the patient visit. But today we want to share with you why it’s important and beneficial for your eyecare practice to be pulling these benefits ahead of time for each and every patient. Here are three big reasons your practice should pull patient benefits ahead of time:
Faster Exams and Visits
Understanding a patient’s benefits before they step foot in your practice is going to help decrease wait times before their appointment and will also help address any payment concerns right off the bat. Insurance is a confusing topic for many people, and patients will often have questions about what’s covered and what’s not. Being prepared to answer these questions especially if a comprehensive exam turns into something more serious that requires special testing will help keep your patients at ease.
More Thorough Care
Having a front desk team that effectively relays benefit information to the OD in the exam lane will help the doctor provide more thorough care for the patient throughout the appointment. Being able to reassure a patient in the exam that a needed test or procedure is partially, fully or not covered by insurance (without wasting time to look it up on the spot) will help keep the patient appointment moving on time.
It will also help the OD establish a greater sense of trust with patients and help give patients a better understanding of the care they are receiving. Being able to discuss both vision and medical coverage with patients will help provide better care and ultimately lead to happier patients and higher retention rates.
Decreased Admin Expenses
Pulling benefits ahead of time can also help your practice cut down on various administrative costs associated with the claim process. Knowing benefits ahead of time will make it easier to charge patients at the time of their appointment, resulting in fewer open patient statements down the road affecting your accounts receivable. It also provides a more hassle-free appointment for patients to be able to take care of everything right then and there without the need for follow up visits or additional payments down the road.
Your entire claim cycle will benefit from pulling benefits ahead of time. Your biller will be able to better recognize common claim denial reasons like payer doesn’t cover the service, patient is uninsured, coverage has been terminated, and pay doesn’t support the frequency of services. And ultimately, it will reduce your denials increase your reimbursements.
Aside from pulling benefits ahead of time there are other ways to increase your claim reimbursements. Check out: The Definitive Guide to Making More Money on Claim Reimbursements.