Case Study on Full Service Billing for an Urgent Care Practice

The Client

Our client has an emergency healthcare clinic that provides patients with quality medical care for common ailments such as fractures, the flu, bruises, cuts, ear and eye infections, rashes, colds, bites, burns, coughs, asthma, allergies, diarrhea and vomiting, amongst others. Their medical staff includes a full-time physician and two part-time physicians. Our client was facing difficulties with their accounts receivables, as they did not have dedicated professionals to handle them. Their billing and AR worries left them with no time to focus on their patients. It also cost them more, as their accounts receivables kept getting older. This client was looking for an offshore vendor who could accurately handle their medical billing and accounts receivables at a low cost. Flatworld Solutions matched their criteria and the project was assigned to us.

The Assignment

The client was facing irregular cash flow and a sharp reduction in collections. Their medical billing was not being completed within the stipulated time of 24 hours. They wanted our medical billing experts to quickly and accurately manage their full service billing for a period of two months. The client promised that they would continue to work with us if they were satisfied with our medical billing and AR services. The following table shows the customer's accounts receivables structure before they started outsourcing full service billing and A/R services to Flatworld Solutions:

Our Full Service Billing & AR Solution

At the onset of the project, our dedicated billing experts followed-up on several of the client's unpaid, underpaid and denied medical claims. Next, our AR specialists promptly met and resolved the client's problems with the insurance companies. We maintained a well-documented business process manual which listed our client's billing problems and our resolution to them.

We created an efficient accounts receivables and medical billing process that ensured that medical billing was quickly taken up within 24 hours of a patient visiting the clinic. A specialized medical billing team was dedicated to serve this client. The team included an accounts receivables specialist, medical billing experts and skilled medical coding professionals. The account of the client was handled by one of our dedicated accounts managers.

Our client was pleased with the way we handled their full service billing and AR services after a month of assigning the project to us. They decided to partner with us for full service billing and signed up as our customer.

The End Result

By choosing to outsource AR services and medical billing to Flatworld Solutions, our client experienced the following results -

• Our medical billing team drastically brought down the client's average days from 34 to 20 days within 6 months
• We increased the client's collection percentage from 53% to 61% within 6 months
• By increasing the AR collection ratios, our client was able to benefit from a significant improvement in their cash flow
• With Flatworld Solutions handling AR and full service billing, our client was able to allocate all their time and effort into patient care. With extra time on their hands, they were even able to administer their services to more patients
• By outsourcing full service billing and AR services to Flatworld Solutions, the client's employees were able to focus on their healthcare practice instead of handling medical billing, coding and AR
• The medical billing specialists at Flatworld Solutions were able to remove the variations associated with the client's backlogged medical claims and employee proceeds
• We were able to maximize the client's operating efficiency and drastically minimize their administrative expenses

The following table charts a marked difference in the increase in collections and consistency in cash flow after the client outsourced full service billing to Flatworld Solutions -

The displayed numbers explain the following -

• The percentage in the 0-30 days bucket shows a gradual increase towards the end
• The percentage in the 91-120 days bucket shows a gradual decrease towards the end
• The percentage in the 120+ bucket shows a huge decrease towards the end

The following graph shows the percentage of collections by the end of November 2008, which stands at 65% as opposed to the prior collection percentage of 53%, before Flatworld started handling the medical billing and AR.

The following graph shows the reduction in the average number of AR days from 34 to 20 days at the end of November 2008, after the client started outsourcing full service billing to Flatworld Solutions.

Outsource billing and AR services to Flatworld Solutions

Is your healthcare practice facing a similar situation? Are you struggling to handle patient care and billing at the same time? Try outsourcing medical billing, coding or accounts receivables to Flatworld Solutions and experience a marked difference in your cash flow. Get in touch with us to outsource full service billing services.