3 Billing Metrics Every Practice Should Track

Having goals is good and scheduling out how to meet your goals is better. But how exactly do you measure success? More importantly, if you are working with a team of people, how do you define a win?

It is a big leap of faith to trust other people to do work for you in your practice. So here are some ways the numbers can define the success of your biller:

1. Aging Reports

Collecting outstanding amounts should be a top priority of any biller. Research shows the longer an amount ages, the less likely it is that the clinician will collect that money. Therefore, a biller must be prompt, but also extremely accurate.

Every month, as a practice owner, you should be able to see positive trends in relation to patient and insurance aging reports. It should be a major red flag if your aging continually increases.

2. Days Until a Denial is Resolved

Every clinician has rejections or denials. Refer to our past blogs to see what the difference between a rejection and a denial is. However, in a busy practice, a therapist can spend days or weeks getting a rejection or denial resolved. The inherent problem is that the longer that money sits in the aging report the less likely you are to ever receive that money.

When you hire a biller, the practice owner should see a marked difference in how quickly those denials or rejections are coming to a resolution. Additionally, the biller should have a schedule for when they are working those denials and rejections.

3. Time Saved

How much time do you spend every week on billing and insurance related activities? If this is any measurable amount, the answer is too much. A biller can save you upwards of 8-10 hours a week. That is enough time to invest in you, your practice, your caseload, your family, your hobbies, etc.

However, if your biller is not saving you time, they are not saving you money. Be aware of how much time you are focused on billing related tasks before and after you hire a biller.

Conclusion

The decision to hire a biller is not a small one, and should be accompanied by metrics that define success. If your biller is not meeting those objectives, it might be time to have a talk with them or find a new biller. Overall, the objective of your biller should be to save you time and clarify the billing process into a palatable system that gets you paid.