Igor has been very busy lately, and he decided to look into how much our clients benefit from using two of Partner's features: the ability to send "electronic bills" and automatically check eligibility.
For the sake of definition, "electronic bills" are when customers hit a button and all of their bills go shooting out across the Internet and are printed, stuffed, folded, and postage-d professionally. "Automatically check eligibility" means that Partner looks at the day's schedule and checks the eligibility of the patients, well, automatically, providing a report for the front office each morning. Essential stuff.
We were surprised by the results. Not that there is a difference or even that "E-bills" and "Eligibility" benefit pediatric practices. We were surprised by how much of a difference there is. Check it out:
| Average A/R By Client Type | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal A/R Days |
Insurance A/R Days |
Total A/R Days |
Total Difference |
|
| Using EBills |
7.45 |
23.65 |
31.10 |
|
| NOT Using EBills |
8.62 |
29.02 |
37.64 |
21% |
| Using Eligibility |
7.96 |
25.05 |
33.01 |
|
| NOT Using Eligibility |
7.99 |
30.06 |
38.05 |
15% |
| Using Both |
7.27 |
23.06 |
30.33 |
|
| Using Neither |
7.53 |
31.80 |
39.33 |
30% |
Yup - our practices using EBills have an A/R that is 21% lower than those who don't. Eligibility lowers it another 15%. Combined, it's 30%. Amazing. [And, yes, PCC customers average about 34 days of A/R. Not bad, eh?]
So, regardless of your PM system, it might be time to consider Ebills and automatically eligibility...though I suspect the type of folks who read my blog already know this.
More later - and I hope to hear from Dr. Marcus, who will give me another perspective on the CCHIT process.