Understanding Payment Posting Services
Payment posting is essential to any solo practitioner's or healthcare organization's revenue cycle management. It entails posting and deposit functions and reconciling posting activities and deposits. The payment posting process impacts many other aspects of the healthcare organization, including efficiency, patient satisfaction, and overall financial performance. Payment posting also offers insight into a practice's daily revenue stream and enables practices to identify and correct potential issues quickly. It is essential for your practice to be apt to see daily insurance payments from EOBs, patient payments, insurance checks from ERAs, and other information. In addition, having an efficient ERA/EOB payment posting system provides a clear picture of your day-to-day financial situation. Let’s have a deep understanding of payment posting services:
Types of Payment Posting
Payment posting in medical billing is done in two ways, depending on the level of insurance coverage and the patient's financial ability:
- Manual Posting:
Manual posting is a payment posting completed by administrative staff and typically takes longer to fill out the information. This posting increases the likelihood of various errors, such as typos and delaying payment posting.
- Auto Payment Posting:
Auto payment posting is a software-driven approach that most industries choose as their digital solution to speed up the medical billing process and ensure a consistent revenue stream. However, few solo physicians believe that manual payment posting gives them less control over their revenue-generating system.
Importance of Payment Posting
Medical payment posting, as a critical step in the medical billing process and an essential component of revenue cycle management, provides the following benefits when done correctly:
- Keeping track of denials and reducing resolution time
Though time-consuming, tracking denials is an essential factor in increasing revenue. Using this benefit, you can efficiently follow up on denied claims and quickly identify the primary reason for the denial. Implementing a proper denial tracking service dramatically benefits the organization by lowering the claim rejection rate while rapidly resolving the issue.
- Improved Claim Submission Accuracy to Secondary Payers
The accuracy of claims submitted to secondary and tertiary payers improves with accurate posting. In the event of incorrect posting, the chances of incorrect billing for secondary and tertiary payers are high. The medical team of professionals must constantly determine new ways to improve various aspects of the revenue cycle. While doing so, they should carefully and continuously track the entire process. In addition to increasing reimbursements, this approach also aids in adhering to the guidelines for accurate billing.
- Recurrent problems are resolved
By using accurate payment posting services, you can quickly resolve the issues within the revenue cycle. It does not restrict payment posting but can also resolve payment adjustment and denial issues. Recurring issues are resolved when the reason for payment denials is identified.
- Improves the Active Process
The competency of the healthcare service provider significantly impacts the organization's revenue cycle. However, there are times when it performs to the best of its ability while management places less emphasis on it. Once the problem has been identified, the administration must focus more on solutions to improve the precision and efficacy of the revenue cycle.
How to ensure an accurate payment posting?
Payment posting can be done either in-house or through outsource payment posting services. Here are some tips for ensuring accurate payment posting:
- Always double-check that the data from EOBs and ERAs corresponds to the payments.
- When collecting deductibles or co-payments during insurance remittance processing, look for problems or revenue cycle leaks.
- To avoid errors, notify management of denials for medical necessities, non-covered services, and prior authorization.
- Always follow up on denials promptly.
Did you know?
Undoubtedly, accurate payment posting impacts overall efficiency and infrastructure. Medical billing and coding service providers such as 24/7 Medical Billing Services assure accuracy and aid in determining the cause of low inflows. Don’t hesitate to contact our billing experts to improve your overall medical billing and payment posting process.
See also: Overview Of No Surprise Act And Good Faith Estimates Billing