30th November 2022
Removing medical billing administration allows consultant cardiologist, Dr Dinos Missouris to focus on clinical care and improve cash flow.
A lot of my time and energy since starting in private practice in 2001 has been focused on growing my private practice and developing my reputation. As my practice grew, the increased workflow put more and more demands on me and required me to take on a medical secretary to help with practice administration.
More recently, I started to feel that, despite working hard with a busy practice, my cash flow was not mirroring the work I was doing. When I started to review the finances of the practice, I found two main problems; I was not getting the visibility that I wanted on my aged debt and the information when provided was not always accurate or up to date.
I discussed this with my personal assistant (PA) and it became clear that one of the issues was the demands of the modern patient. The need to respond in a timely fashion to patient emails and phone calls meant that the invoicing, reconciliation and chasing of outstanding debt for the practice was always being interrupted or delayed.
I had not appreciated the considerable amount of time that was being taken up by this task and the impact it was having on the rest of the practice. In fact, the growth of my practice had contributed to it becoming cumbersome to manage.
On top of this, the requirement for some of the insurance companies to only take invoices electronically, combined with the difficulty my PA was having in contacting some of the insurers to resolve issues, had added to the problem. My age debt was running at 20% and so I knew I had to take some form of action.
Placed in ‘intensive care’
I had heard of Civica Medical Billing and Collection (previously MBC) through some colleagues, so I contacted Simon Brignall, director of business development. We had a detailed conversation about my practice and then a meeting with my PA to establish the issues.
My account was initially placed in an ‘intensive care’ process and a dedicated account manager was able to assist my PA with the transition process and to focus on the backlog of outstanding debt that had built up.
DR DINOS MISSOURIS,
CONSULTANT CARDIOLOGIST
The result of having specialised staff focus on this area of my practice meant that after eight months they had collected over 90% of my outstanding backlog of debt.
This was great, because some of this debt went back to invoices raised in 2016, so it was over two years old. And, so far, I have only written off £250 from the backlog.
I also now get the visibility that I wanted, as I have access to up-to-date financial data for the practice from an online system which is available 24/7. If required, I can also ask my account manager for a report.
Happier PA
This means I am now confident that the credit management side of my practice is being managed professionally. The fact that I have not yet written anything off since choosing to partner with Civica Medical Billing and Collection confirms this.
My PA is also much happier, as he no longer has to carry out the billing and reconciliation function. This enables him to keep his relationship with the patient focused purely on the clinical side of the practice, having removed the need to chase for money.
Civica Medical Billing and Collection has been able to advise me on all aspects of the financial side of my practice to ensure I am now billing efficiently. It has also added a range of new capabilities such as being able to take payments by debit or credit card without maintaining my own system to achieve this.
What I would pass on to other consultants from my experience is to not to let your practice outgrow your current arrangements or a growing practice hide the fact that your practice is not as financially healthy as it could be.
Simon Brignall continues, “As part of our “intensive care” process, Dr Missouris’s outstanding invoices were loaded onto our system. These invoices were run through our chasing process and any queries that arose from this were managed in an orderly manner with Dr Missouris’s medical PA.
I think the figures speak for themselves. If your practice bad debts are greater than what you would pay a billing company, then you are already losing money. To this figure, add the cost of business lost because the phone was engaged as your secretary is chasing debts.
There is always an opportunity cost to having your secretary carry out this role, even if you are paying. Remember, some secretaries feel uncomfortable chasing money or just have a different skill set that is not suited to this task.
The fact that our fees are calculated on received income means that you know we share the same objectives.”