Accounts receivable (A/R) days reflect your practice's financial health and operational efficiency. Yet, many practices find it challenging to control these figures, especially given growing staff shortages and the increasing demand for healthcare services.
As the old saying goes, "A stitch in time saves nine," failing to address prolonged A/R days can seriously compromise your ability to maximize reimbursements. In the worst case, you might have to write off these unpaid balances, leading to significant revenue loss, which can hinder practice operations and lower patient satisfaction.
But what if there's a way to tackle these challenges head-on without overburdening your staff?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t just about robots and sci-fi anymore; it can act like that extra set of hands you need, multitasking and closing the gaps that slow down revenue cycles. It can transform how you manage revenue cycles, reduce your A/R days, minimize errors, and ensure faster payments. Timely AI intervention can recover payments on the verge of being written off as bad debt.
In this article, we'll discuss how AI technology can transform A/R management and explore how it’s helping healthcare providers get paid faster and more accurately than ever before.
Accounts Receivable is a critical metric that reflects the time it takes for a medical practice to receive payment for the healthcare services rendered. The longer a claim stays in AR, the lower its chances of recovery, which can negatively impact a practice's cash flow and financial health.
Delays in reimbursement often stem from claim denials due to coding and billing errors, inadequate documentation, or lack of prior authorization. Unfortunately, many denied claims that could be resolved with timely follow-up often go unattended, leading to avoidable financial setbacks.
So, what’s the solution?
Adopt a dual approach: prevent denials and recover denied claims.
The best part? You don’t need to hire more staff. Instead, harness the power of AI automation.
The result? A win-win: cost-effective and reduced burnout. Here's how artificial intelligence can make it happen.
Chasing long-overdue accounts receivables can take hours, even days, to secure the compensation you rightfully deserve. Neglecting them drains your revenue, but addressing them can divert time from your core responsibility — patient care.
The most effective way to manage lengthy A/R is to prevent it from happening in the first place.
1. Insurance Verification
Managing hundreds of patients — each insured under different plans with unique coverage — can be overwhelming. A single misstep in the insurance verification process, such as expired coverage or missed prior authorizations, can lead to denied claims, delayed payments, and significant revenue loss.
Automating this critical, repetitive task mitigates the risk of errors that lead to claim rejections and speeds up the verification process, freeing healthcare professionals to focus on higher-value tasks.
2. Automated Coding
Coding accuracy is non-negotiable in medical billing. It's even more critical in a value-based care model, where reimbursement is tied to the quality of care rather than the volume of services provided. Finding proficient coders is often challenging, and the evolving coding standards, particularly when transitioning to ICD-11, can be overwhelming for even the most skilled professionals.
Shifting from manual code assignment to AI-powered automated coding prevents human error. Moreover, AI tools equipped with Natural Language Processing (NLP) can interpret physician notes and automatically assign medical codes, ensuring compliance with current regulations. Automated AI coding accelerates the billing cycle and generates cleaner claims, resulting in faster, more reliable reimbursements and fewer rejections.
3. Streamlined Claims Processing
Human eyes can often overlook missing information or subtle errors — machines, however, don’t. AI efficiently scans every claim, flagging any missing data or compliance issues that could lead to rejections. This preemptive review significantly boosts the chances of first-pass approval, reducing delays and improving cash flow.
Moreover, AI-powered solutions like GlaceScribe, an AI scribe tool, can automatically generate SOAP notes by simply listening to provider-patient conversations (Natural Language Processing). This frees up time that would otherwise be spent on manual note-taking, strengthening the patient-provider relationship and elevating the patient experience.
Furthermore, AI offers another powerful capability: computer vision. This technology allows AI to extract valuable information from visual data, such as medical images, scanned documents, or handwritten notes, and seamlessly integrate it into Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, enhancing the speed and efficiency of data entry.
4. Real-Time Monitoring
AI systems can monitor each claim in real-time, flagging potential issues such as missing information, coding discrepancies, or approaching deadlines. These systems promptly alert medical practices to take corrective action before claims are submitted, improving claim accuracy.
Despite preventive efforts, some claims might still be denied. Fortunately, payers often overturn over half of the initial denials when appealed after making the necessary corrections. Leverage artificial intelligence to streamline your denial management and prevent burnout caused by manual denial resolutions.
1. Automated Appeal
Instead of assigning a separate staff member to track and handle denials, consider offloading this task to AI. AI systems continuously monitor claims and can swiftly identify denied ones and generate alerts. The best part about AI is its machine learning ability — you can train it on the specific remedial actions for each denied claim, streamlining the appeal process.
Furthermore, AI can optimize appeal letters. Your appeal letter plays a vital role in overturning a denial, and optimizing this step increases your chances of reimbursement and improves practice efficiency.
2. Denial Management
When dealing with aging A/R, prioritizing high-value and easily recoverable accounts is crucial. Manually sorting denials can be time-consuming and inefficient, and AI automation can be highly beneficial here.
AI-powered denial management systems prioritize high-value and easily convertible denials, maintaining optimal cash flow for your practice. Moreover, they also offer tailored recommendations — whether resubmitting claims with updated information or initiating appeals — making the process more efficient and boosting recovery rates.
3. Analytics and Reporting
Developing effective strategies is just the beginning; the real success of AR management lies in tracking performance, generating actionable reports, and gaining valuable insights. Without concrete numbers, it's impossible to measure the effectiveness of your efforts or modify your strategies.
AI-powered analytics platforms offer deep insights into AR performance, providing real-time dashboards and robust reporting tools. These systems help healthcare providers track essential metrics such as denial rates, days in AR, and cash flow trends, offering a clear picture of financial performance. AI can identify patterns in claims and payments, highlight areas where issues frequently occur, and suggest actionable steps to improve overall efficiency. By leveraging these insights, practices can make data-driven decisions, refine processes, continuously enhance revenue cycle management, and amplify collections.
4. Predictive Analysis
AI can function like an airport screener, efficiently detecting issues in claims before submission. Its advanced machine learning algorithms allow it to predict claims at higher risk of denial, flag coding errors, missing information, or inadequate supporting documents.
Additionally, AI continuously learns from past claim outcomes, improving itself and helping practices stay ahead of payer requirements.
AI is that reliable assistant that never sleeps. It works tirelessly behind the scenes, streamlining your operations, quietly lifting the weight of practice management off your shoulders, and allowing you to focus on patient care.
Around 43% of medical groups have already leveraged AI, and all our partners have successfully unlocked this powerful tool. At Glenwood Systems, we embrace the momentum of technological advancements. Our practice management tools — GlaceEMR, GlaceRCM, GlaceScribe, and GlacePhoneSmart — now incorporate AI-driven features, revolutionizing how providers manage billing processes, coding, documentation, claim submissions, and denial resolutions.
Want to streamline your practice operations, reduce errors, and empower your staff? Let's partner and reform your practice.
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