Eligible for: ACMPE: .5 | CEU: .5 Traditional | Basic | Comprehension Sponsored by ZOLL Data Systems
The practice of zero-day billing — billing as soon after the date of service as possible — was meant to promote cash flow. With changes in the commercial health insurance landscape, this approach doesn’t cover it. Given the rise in high-deductible insurance plans (50% of current workers are enrolled in a plan with an annual deductible of $1,000 or higher, a 294% increase compared to 2009 levels), patient out-of-pocket costs have ballooned, and so has the bad debt on healthcare providers’ books. Higher deductibles mean many people will not satisfy their annual deductible until much later. So when claims are submitted too soon, providers must collect unpaid balances directly from patients before deductible limits are met. A shift to ‘Right-Day Billing’ is a new RCM approach that factors in deductible status, optimizes claim submission timing, and shifts primary financial responsibility back to payers.
Learning Objectives:
Identify how ‘Right-Day Billing’ can generate more revenue versus ‘Zero-Day Billing’
Describe automated tools that can be used to monitor patient deductibles to execute ‘Right-Day Billing’
Discuss how payer mix plays a key role in timing your claim submissions