Accounts Receivable Blog posts

The revenue cycle begins with the scheduling of an appointment and ends with the payment collected for services rendered. It sounds simple, but there are crucial steps in between that if not performed accurately, may delay payments. And with coding errors, data duplication, or missing information, you may lose revenue that your facility depends on […]

Making the move to an outside vendor for your community health center’s (CHC’s) billing needs can be a difficult decision. CHCs are truly the hearts of the communities which they serve. Not only do they provide quality healthcare to underserved populations, they provide much-needed employment opportunities as well. Many CHCs take great pride in providing […]

At month’s close, Community Health Center (CHC) executives across the country brace themselves as they review the status of their accounts receivable (AR). Dollars owed to the center for services provided, sitting there, just out of reach. Some may meet with billing staff in an effort to get those claims approved; others may just sigh […]

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI), simply put, is a performance measurement. KPIs evaluate the success of a particular activity, in this case, the success of a center’s revenue cycle operations. Success is generally defined as the achievement of some measure of a finite goal. However, success can also be defined in terms of making progress […]

Reimbursement in the community health center (CHC) world has changed drastically over the program’s last 40 years. Gone are the grant dependent entities of the past. Today’s CHC must constantly navigate the stormy waters of the health care world in an effort to remain fiscally solvent. There is ever increasing pressure on health centers to […]

Whether it’s the complexities in payment methodology, increase focus on outcomes, or the attention on health information technology, there is another common challenge among healthcare organizations; i.e.,  the growth in patient responsible balances.  With the uninsured, underinsured, and high deductible health plans, this is a growing issue in the community health center world.   One tool […]

Want a sure fire way to send shivers up anyone’s back? Just tell them that they are going to be audited. Audit is a very scary word to many. We are afraid of getting into trouble. We are afraid they will find that we are doing something wrong. Why are we so scared? Should we […]

“Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.” -Ed Bradley, American Journalist We have a saying at PMG… or at least we did in our early days… “We work without nets.” It is not an […]

The Budget Control Act of 2011 mandated across the board reductions in government spending.   In 2013 President Obama ordered a payment sequestration reducing Medicare fee-for-service payments by 2% across the board [1].     Medicare had been using Claim Adjustment Reason Code (CARC) CO-223 to communicate those adjustments. In June of 2013 CMS created a new code, […]

“Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder.” -Mason Cooley Sub Title: Procrastination… Big Dates Keep Coming Regardless of Readiness OK. I admit to being a “last minute Louie” for a good bit of my life. I have all the legitimate excuses of being too busy or needing more info or thinking someone else […]