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Neil Baum, MD, a Professor of Clinical Urology at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Baum is the author of several books, including the best-selling book, 

Marketing Your Medical Practice-Ethically, Effectively, and Economically,

 which has sold over 225,000 copies and has been translated into Spanish. He contributes a weekly video for 

 on practical ideas to enhance productivity and efficiency in medical practices.  His 5–7-minute videos and short articles provide practical ideas that can be easily implemented and incorporated into any medical practice. Dr. Baum can be reached at 

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The Narrative Medicine movement at Columbia Medical School believes that using stories increases empathy, enhances wellness and resilience, and promotes a more humanistic healthcare culture.

Storytelling to connect with your patients

 advises clients on compliance, transactions, government administrative actions, and litigation involving healthcare, cybersecurity, corporate and securities law, as well as False Claims Act and Dodd-Frank whistleblower cases. She also teaches bioethics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Rachel can be reached through her website, 

What health care can learn from recent DOJ actions.

Appreciating burden of proof and what remains in the SolarWinds case

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How to make sure your practice's cybersecurity plans are enough to keep your patients' data is safe from hackers.

Keeping your practice's cybersecurity plans up-to-date and effective

a company that specializes in strategic healthcare initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, management services organizations, private equity, succession planning, physician partnerships, and strategic planning. He can be reached at 

Growth has its risks, but the right strategy can deliver stability, security, and long-term profits.

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, with over 20 years’ experience in physician billing and revenue cycle management

Patient engagement begins by recognizing that greater responsibility for payment has also led to greater expectation and choice on the part of patients.

Patient engagement is the first step in getting paid

New legislation, as well as changes in patient expectations, present a host of challenges and opportunities for getting paid for service this year.

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It’s critical that independent practices make sure that they are laying the groundwork to make telehealth a robust part of their care delivery and their bottom line.

3 things practices must do to assure they get paid for telehealth in 2021

As patient satisfaction plays a growing role in reimbursement, it’s critical for practices to find ways to boost patient satisfaction scores. But that’s easier said than done – especially since most practice staff and physicians are already stretched thin for time and resources.

To help, we spoke with Meryl Luallin, a partner at California-based medical practice consulting firm 

 and a medical practice shadow coach. Here’s how she said a practice can develop an effective patient satisfaction improvement plan.

Creating a patient satisfaction improvement plan

A step-by-step guide to improved patient satisfaction scores at your practice.

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Why is medical information so valuable to hackers?

 are always trying to gain access to health care facility systems, but what makes health care data so valuable?

; cybersecurity, technology risk, and privacy practice global leader at CohnReznick; explains why hackers are so motivated to 

Why are hackers so motivated to gain access to medical data?

You know how much you have invested in your career and how much money it takes to run a medical practice, but your patients may not.

If you let patients know from the beginning that you are running a business and expect to be paid, you’ll have far fewer collections problems in the long run. Fortunately, having this conversation is not as difficult as you may think.

“We’re often embarrassed about collecting money, but we shouldn’t be,” says Kenneth Hertz FACMPE, principle consultant at 

 (MGMA) Health Care Consulting Group. “You can explain in a friendly tone that you are a business and want to be around for a long time provide care to your patients. That means you have to collect payments.”

Once patients understand this, they are more likely to pay their bills on time. But you do have to be consistent with this message.

“Most patients understand their obligations and are willing to pay,” says Elizabeth Woodcock president of Woodcock and Associates, a physician practice consulting firm. “A few are going to resist.” For those few, you have to make it clear from the outset that you expect to be paid in a timely manner.

This means having a billing and collections policy and sticking to it - no exceptions. “Often, the doctor tells the billing staff to collect what patients owe, but then tells patients not to worry about payment. I’m always hearing from staff [who are] frustrated by doctors making exceptions to the policies,” Woodcock says, adding that if patients learn they don’t have to pay, they never will.

Of course, you can - and should - still make arrangements with people who can’t afford to pay. But you must have a detailed policy for financial hardship, and every employee in your practice needs to understand and abide by that policy.

Setting expectations requires more than posting a set of billing policies. If you expect patients to comply with your policies, you must stick to those policies, too.

It would be nice to leave billing to the billing department and patient care to the clinical staff. But that’s not always possible.

Billing staff don’t know what’s going to happen before or during the visit. For example, a clinician may perform a procedure that requires an additional copay. “[Before] these things happen, someone from billing needs to come back and explain the extra charge to the patient,” says Karen Lake, healthcare consultant at the firm Pearce, Bevill, Leesburg, Moore.

Clinical staff need to be prepared proactively address these situations, too. The rise of patient consumerism means that patients are more aware of their care costs and are more likely to ask what they’ll be expected to pay for procedures, lab tests, and the like. Often, those questions come up in the exam room.

“Physician assistants and nurses deal with this all the time, so it’s a good idea if the billing department does in-service training so that the clinical staff have a better idea of billing and insurance issues,” Lake says. “They don’t need to know all the details, but they do need to know when to call in the billing department for clarification.”

The majority of patients take their financial obligations seriously. They value your services and expertise. They just need to understand what they are responsible for paying. It’s your job to explain that to them.

“The conversation doesn’t have to be all ‘Thou shall,’ ‘Thou shall not,’ and ‘We reserve the right,’” Hertz says. “Be up front, human, and matter-of-fact. It’s just a matter of person-to-person communication.”

If you let patients know from the start what you expect from them, you’re far more likely to get the money you’re asking for.

How to talk with patients about billing

When patients visit family clinics to address health issues, they expect quality care, and an easy billing process. However, these interactions can be stressful, especially when issues like incorrect patient bills arise. Such situations can be particularly challenging for individuals who are primarily focused on meeting their families' basic needs and may not have the bandwidth to deal with unexpected financial statements.

The frustrations experienced in healthcare settings, including 

 discrepancies, service levels, wait times, and other aspects of the patient journey, often stemming from underlying administrative challenges. Underneath their cool patient-centered focus, well-meaning healthcare providers are struggling with admin issues. A key contributing factor is the ongoing struggle to maintain an adequate workforce in the back office, which is essential for the smooth functioning of healthcare practices. This challenge is exacerbated by the current labor market dynamics, as highlighted in reports on the 

 rates continue to rise as insurance providers frequently alter their contracts, making reimbursement increasingly challenging. Healthcare providers lacking the administrative resources to meticulously review each claim and service find securing reimbursement from insurance companies increasingly tricky.

These three areas are particularly problematic, and addressing them is critical. The solution? A new introduction to the market, AI Agents, offer a promising pathway for family clinics and other healthcare providers to mitigate claims denials, enhance reimbursement rates, improve patient experiences, and refocus their efforts on core healthcare services. Healthcare back-office AI Agents are capable of various roles including:

Family clinics often handle a high volume of patients, including both scheduled appointments and walk-ins. Each patient comes with a unique reimbursement plan, making it difficult to determine their eligibility and available healthcare services quickly and on a large scale.

Reimbursement eligibility is nuanced and complex. It includes various factors such as an evaluation of the services covered by health insurance companies, the levels of reimbursement, and unique criteria that can qualify or disqualify a patient's services for reimbursement. This landscape is constantly changing as patients frequently switch insurance providers or plans, and their basic profile information, such as home address, may also change over time.

This complexity makes it difficult for family clinics to know what will be reimbursed, which leads to an unnecessary amount of claim denials without proper patient eligibility verification.

Thankfully implementing an AI Agent-powered eligibility verification function in their revenue cycle departments can help healthcare providers like family clinics. The AI Agent can sort through heaps of information quickly to verify each appointment and walk-in, ensuring that the services provided are eligible for reimbursement, and enabling them to inform the patients immediately if not, leading to improved patient satisfaction.

Healthcare providers, such as family clinics must ensure that their claims are highly accurate for acceptance by clearinghouses and insurance providers. Due to the complex nature of claims, there are many opportunities for a claim to be blocked or denied.

Mistakes leading to claim denials often occur when Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) teams are overworked, leading to fatigue from handling repetitive processes. This results in additional time spent in claims processing as healthcare providers must spend extra time investigating and resubmitting claims. Some family clinics try to address this compounding work by hiring more staff. However, this approach often leads to a cycle of issues due to difficulties in hiring and retaining RCM staff, which result in 

AI agents, offer a promising pathway for family clinics and other healthcare providers to mitigate claims denials, enhance reimbursement rates, improve patient experiences, and refocus their efforts on core healthcare services.

Terri Joy, MBA, CPC, CGSC, COC, CPC-I

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