Product-line concept to multispecialty groups
Product-line concept to multispecialty groups
Organize billing by specialty
The "product line" concept of organizing your billing office works especially well for a multispecialty practice. In a multispecialty practice’s case, each specialty can represent one product line.
If a specialty is large, you can appoint more than one person to the task. This can be done without compromising the model by dividing the specialty according to provider, or by appointing different product-line managers within the billing office.
Still, some duties traditionally segregated in the billing process may continue to remain separate, says consultant Heather Auld, director of training and consulting services for Physician Billing Solutions of Wayne, PA. For instance, payment postings can continued to be handled separately in the interest of volume and speed. Or self-payment collections may remain separate, in order to avoid the confusion of having patients who receive services from different specialists being called by different product-line managers.
Ultimately, each practice will divide duties and specialties based on the demands of its payer mix, the number of doctors, characteristics of the patient base, current status of accounts receivable, and how fast employees can successfully assume their new responsibilities, Auld says.
Other considerations you need to think about when organizing by product line include:
1. Training. Physician Billing Solutions spends three to six months training employees before they actually assume their duties as a new product line manager. During the transition, training proves even more difficult as you need to educate your staff about their new duties without compromising productivity under the old system.
2. Physical requirements. Reorganization may require both new equipment and space. As your employees undertake their new duties, you will find that they need different equipment to perform their job (e.g., better computers, fax machines). All the new equipment requires space, and you may need to move your group around to accommodate this need.
3. Human resources. Ideally, when you make the transition, you will want to utilize internal candidates to fill the new product-line manager positions. According to Auld, accounts receivable personnel are often a good choice. Generally, the new product line manager position is a higher-level position with higher pay than accounts receivable.
4. Finances. Increased salaries and enhanced equipment are two possible financial considerations affected by the change. However, Auld notes that the long-term benefits will definitely outweigh the initial financial burden.
5. Creative problem-solving. After implementing the system, problems are going to arise, but "with a little thought and creativity you can work through them quickly while streamlining the billing process," stresses Auld.
For instance, during the transition to product-line specialists, one practice had a particularly hard time deciding how to distribute work. Claim rejections had be sorted manually according to specialty as they were grouped under one provider number. This problem, however, was solved by obtaining separate provider numbers for each product line through re-enrollment.
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