Brian Brown, regional vice president of operations at Meridian Surgical Partners, lists six simple ways to make your ASC more profitable.
1. Fill in gaps in your surgery schedule. Fill in gaps in your schedule with new cases or by condensing existing cases and shortening the day. This involves reaching out to physicians' offices one to two weeks before day of surgery to ask for new cases or for time changes. "If you don't ask, you don't get," Mr. Brown says.
2. Bookend big cases around small cases. Schedule big cases, which involve longer set-up times, first or last in the day. This removes one long turnover time in the middle of the day.
3. Double-check scheduling. Mistakenly putting a long procedure into a short block of time can ruin the whole day. It's worthwhile to double-check the schedule beforehand.
4. Cross-train staff. Having a back-up staff member will be invaluable when regular staff members are out. A second coder, for example, will keep claims moving. Employees like cross-training because it's a chance to go from part-time to full-time.
5. Get a grip on patient collections. As deductibles reach the $2,000 and even $5,000 level, collecting from patients becomes key. Rethink your patient collection process. Make sure patients understand their responsibility before surgery and make it easy for them to fulfill it by offering many kinds of payment, as well as a payment plan if needed.
6. Make sure you're billing at the highest level possible. Sometimes lower-paying codes are accepted when a higher-paying code would be accepted as well. This is hard to know unless you conduct an audit. You won't be alerted by rejections.
Learn more about Meridian Surgical Partners.
1. Fill in gaps in your surgery schedule. Fill in gaps in your schedule with new cases or by condensing existing cases and shortening the day. This involves reaching out to physicians' offices one to two weeks before day of surgery to ask for new cases or for time changes. "If you don't ask, you don't get," Mr. Brown says.
2. Bookend big cases around small cases. Schedule big cases, which involve longer set-up times, first or last in the day. This removes one long turnover time in the middle of the day.
3. Double-check scheduling. Mistakenly putting a long procedure into a short block of time can ruin the whole day. It's worthwhile to double-check the schedule beforehand.
4. Cross-train staff. Having a back-up staff member will be invaluable when regular staff members are out. A second coder, for example, will keep claims moving. Employees like cross-training because it's a chance to go from part-time to full-time.
5. Get a grip on patient collections. As deductibles reach the $2,000 and even $5,000 level, collecting from patients becomes key. Rethink your patient collection process. Make sure patients understand their responsibility before surgery and make it easy for them to fulfill it by offering many kinds of payment, as well as a payment plan if needed.
6. Make sure you're billing at the highest level possible. Sometimes lower-paying codes are accepted when a higher-paying code would be accepted as well. This is hard to know unless you conduct an audit. You won't be alerted by rejections.
Learn more about Meridian Surgical Partners.