The Patient Payment Systems for Clinic Owners to Reduce AR and Train Teams with Jean and Debbie

Episode summary

In this episode of Rehabbing Your Revenue Cycle Podcast, host Robert Kowalick sits down with Debbie Powell, Co-Founder and Owner, and Jean Weatherly, Director of Administration, at HealthActions Physical Therapy and Fitness, to discuss one of the most common revenue leaks in private practices today: patient cost shares. Together, they share how their clinic successfully improved cash flow by optimizing their patient financial responsibility policies and processes. Even though patient payments account for over 18% of HealthActions revenue, patient AR accounts for less than 1% of their total AR.

Show notes

In this episode of Rehabbing Your Revenue Cycle Podcast, host Robert Kowalick sits down with Debbie Powell, Co-Founder and Owner, and Jean Weatherly, Director of Administration, at HealthActions Physical Therapy and Fitness, to discuss one of the most common revenue leaks in private practices today: patient cost shares. Together, they share how their clinic successfully improved cash flow by optimizing their patient financial responsibility policies and processes. Even though patient payments account for over 18% of HealthActions revenue, patient AR accounts for less than 1% of their total AR. Once armed with proper data, Debbie and Jean strategically updated policies and implemented best practices that focused on staff training, patient communications, systems integrations and consistent execution in each of their 11 offices to collect millions from patients per year with no patient AR over 30 days old! Debbie and Jean have created a more profitable and streamlined business, even in the face of rising patient cost shares and industry challenges.

With decades of experience in physical therapy private practice, Robert was able to help HealthActions identify opportunities to improve the financial outcomes of their business. Patient financial responsibility policies and processes are one of the most common under performing revenue cycle functions in a practice. Debbie and Jean are living proof that better data opens the door to better processes, better outcomes and a better business. Their commitment to creating efficient systems and a strong team culture has helped their practice grow, resulting in greater financial stability and long-term success.

Expect to Learn

• How Debbie and Jean improved their practice’s financial performance through better data, better processes and better revenue cycle outcomes.
• Why training the entire staff, front office, back office and clinicians is key to collecting patient cost shares at the time of service and eliminating patient accounts receivable.
• Why using data to track the impacts of policy and procedure changes is critical to optimization efforts.
• Why effective patient financial responsibility policy and process have a huge impact on reducing revenue cycle complexity and billing time demand.
• Why patient payments that average almost 20% of practice revenue is the lowest hanging fruit to capture when searching for ways to improve practice financial performance.
• How teamwork across all roles in a practice as measured by common revenue cycle objectives is essential for improving revenue cycle outcomes and building greater financial stability.

Timestamps

• [00:00] – Teaser
• [00:59] – Introduction
• [04:11] – The Journey of Change
• [08:58] – Revenue Trends in Physical Therapy
• [15:43] – Building Effective Systems
• [18:24] – Benchmarking Success with Data
• [22:23] – Collecting at the Front Desk
• [29:21] – The Role of Patient Experience
• [31:01] – Credit Card on File & Post-Discharge Balances
• [34:05] – Documentation, Auditing & Incentives
• [37:05] – Closing Thoughts

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