High-deductible insurance plans are continuing to grow in number, and patients often don’t meet their annual deductibles until much later in the year. When claims are submitted too soon, before deductible limits are met, providers are forced to collect unpaid balances directly from patients, and bad debt rises. Therefore, the days of zero-day billing — or billing as soon after the date of service as possible — are over.

Turn Zero-day Billing Into Right-day Billing

This added financial and administrative burden on healthcare providers means a new revenue cycle management (RCM) process is needed: one that considers deductible status and places the financial responsibility on payers. This is where right-day billing, or the practice of intentionally and precisely timing claim submission so that other providers run up against the patient’s deductible, comes into play.

The highest portion of bad debt comes from balances that fall into the patient self-pay category, so providers should be actively monitoring deductibles and submitting claims when limits are close to being met.

Make Automated Deductible Monitoring Do the Work for You

While manual deductible monitoring is possible, it is often very labor-intensive, inefficient, and complex. RCM staff is strained, repeatedly checking individual payer portals for each claim. Utilizing automated deductible monitoring technology can do the heavy lifting of continuously tracking this process with each patient account. It provides real-time intelligence about deductible fulfillment and is also able to submit claims automatically when a deductible is met.

The effectiveness of this automated technology makes it possible to optimize RCM processes for right-day billing, thereby reducing bad debt and increasing patient satisfaction by shifting financial responsibility to the payer. The time savings can also free up RCM staff to focus on higher-value work.

To learn more about how providers can prevent bad debt with the help of automated deductible monitoring, read the full article, “When Bad Timing Equals Bad Debt: How Providers Can Maximize Revenue by Monitoring Deductible Status.”

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