Mastering the art of charge capture is crucial for efficient hospital billing, especially for small practices. Understanding the ABCs of effective charge capture can significantly enhance your practice's financial health. 

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A for Active Census Management

Active Census Management is the first critical step in effective charge capture. It involves keeping an accurate and continuously updated list of patients under a practice’s care. Accurate patient tracking is crucial for ensuring all rendered services are correctly billed. Mismanagement in this step can lead to lost revenue due to unbilled services. Modern charge capture and revenue cycle solutions, such as pCharge™ and pRevenue™, significantly aid in this process by providing real-time patient tracking and ensuring no patient is missed in the billing cycle. Advanced solutions such as these will pair integrations with hospital systems and practice management systems with easy intuitive census management in a mobile app, which leads to improved accuracy and time-saving, enabling healthcare providers to focus more on patient care rather than administrative tasks.

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B for Billing in Real Time

Billing in real-time is another key aspect of effective charge capture. Traditional methods such as paper or Excel spreadsheets involve delayed or batch processing of charges, which can lead to significant revenue losses. These days, almost every provider will have a cell phone with them. Real-time billing, facilitated by mobile charge capture software, ensures that services are captured at the point of care as soon as they are rendered. This immediacy reduces the chances of missed or forgotten charges, a common issue in hospital charge capture. Additionally, real-time billing can lead to reduced charge lag overall, leading to faster reimbursements and improved cash flow.

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C for Charge Lag and Reconciliation

The final component is managing charge lag and reconciliation. Charge lag, the time between service delivery and charge entry, should be minimized to ensure a healthy revenue cycle. Prolonged charge lag can lead to delayed payments and increased denials. Effective charge capture solutions address this by enabling prompt entry and submission of charges at the point of care. Furthermore, reconciliation, the process of matching charges with services documented in the medical record, is vital for preventing billing errors. Solutions such as pCharge™ offer reports and tools for easy reconciliation, ensuring that all services provided are accurately captured and billed.

The ABCs of effective charge capture - Active Census Management, Billing in Real Time, and Charge Lag and Reconciliation - are essential for small practices aiming to optimize their hospital billing processes. By leveraging effective charge capture solutions or revenue cycle management, practices can ensure accuracy, reduce delays, and enhance their overall financial performance.

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How pMD^® Can Help

At pMD^®, we are committed to helping small practices streamline and optimize the patient care episode and the revenue cycle. Whether it's through providing specialist expertise, offering outsourcing solutions, or delivering our integrated billing services, our focus is to enable small practices to concentrate more on patient care and less on billing complexities. We can help your practice consolidate vendors, reduce costs, streamline workflows, improve patient care and satisfaction, and collect their maximum reimbursement more quickly.

Not sure what a vendor could do to improve your behavioral health billing? Contact pMD^® for a no-commitment financial impact analysis by our team of healthcare RCM experts free of charge!