The medical billing process is a multifaceted activity, and involves many sub-processes, often involving personnel such as a receptionist, front office administrators, medical biller, coder, and office staff. The intricate process begins with patient registration, the first step in the revenue cycle. Any neglect can impede the revenue cycle and give rise to various errors and registration hiccups.  If the patient registration process is not in place, you stand a chance of losing your rightful earnings.

With an optimized system, it becomes possible to offer better customer care, and increase the revenue stream of your physical therapy practice.

Patient Check-in

When a patient arrives or calls for an appointment, the patient registration process commences. It is the responsibility of the front office staff to ask a series of questions, to collect all the pertinent billing and insurance information. Also,  it is important to encourage the patient to provide all the details before his/her medical care begins. Remaining up-to-date on the patient information is beneficial for the entire management. With the automated system, managing and updating patient information has never been so easy.

The questions commonly asked include a series of basics like the name of the patient, birth date, address, and the reason for the visit. In addition, the following questions are crucial to ask before the patient arrives for the appointment:

• What is the primary coverage of the patient, and also, the secondary insurance coverage of the patient?
• What is the unique payer ID for the submission of the electronic claims?
• Does the patient have a cap on the number of visits to the physical therapy practice, including occupational, physical, and speech therapy. Also, it is important to know how many visits the patients have already used. And, if the patient requires more visits than the allowed visits, what is the authorization process for the same?
• What is the deductible amount that the patient can claim on the services, and if at all the patient has already met with the amount of deductible.
• Who shall be responsible for following up with the details of the payment of the claims?
• Does the patient’s insurance include speech therapy services, physical, and/or occupational services?
• Gather information about the patient’s insurance company, whether it is required by your team to send any papers for advance notification.

It is crucial that your personnel verify the information of the insurance for its accuracy. Also, it is of utmost importance to collect any additional required information pertaining  to the status of the deductible, co-payments, and covered vs. non-covered services.  Make sure that your automated system generates timely reports showing each patient’s insurance status.

An effective patient registration process is the foundation to commence your revenue cycle on the right foot, eliminating hassles in complying with any procedures in the future.

Apollo Practice Management supports your patient registration process and puts you in complete control of all your billing requirements. From patient invoicing, insurance claims, insurance payments, to updating of new rules for claim applications, the system ensures that all your claims are received and accepted.

Apollo includes a system for the patient to fulfill patient registration through his mobile device either from home or at the practice too. This helps save time at every level of the process and ensures mistakes are minimized.