5 Tips for Simpler Chiropractor Billing Management

Chiropractors know that the billing process is necessary, but they may not be aware that it doesn’t have to be a hassle. There are several ways to simplify things once you understand billing, coding, and insurance for chiropractic services. Your ultimate goal is spending more time with patients and less time writing claims and billing insurance companies. You’ve done the work and you deserve to get paid.

What Makes Chiropractic Billing Management So Difficult

Chiropractor billing involves creating and submitting claims and reconciling payments, but what’s difficult is finding unpaid charges. It’s hard to keep track of charges manually, and for many chiropractors, they won’t realize that there was a missed payment until six months or so down the line, at which point, they likely have to write off the charge and lose money. How do you make this job easier?

How to Simplify Chiropractic Billing Management

1. Manage reports by aging

Most chiropractor billing systems use an aging report. It identifies balances and the length of time that they’re outstanding. A billing management software can automatically move the practice’s outstanding balances to thirty, sixty, ninety, and 120-plus days. You’ll also find that these balances automatically move when your billing system updates at the end of each month.

No matter how these updates occur, your staff must stay on top of these balances and keep track of their due dates. Managing these reports is easier when you organize them by payer class. That means separating each outstanding bill by:

• Medicare and other commercial carriers
• Personal injury
• Workers’ compensation
• Cash payments

2. Minimize your reconciliation phone calls

Organize your outstanding balances with the highest ones listed first instead of being in alphabetical order. You can also sort these balances by the insurance carrier. This way, when you’re working with a specific carrier, you can inquire about more than one patient during the call.

Tips for managing reconciliation phone calls include the following.

• Use chiropractor billing software: Use your chiropractor billing software to review each patient’s insurance information. Retrieve the appropriate claim number, ID number, phone number, and other pertinent information before beginning the call.
• Prepare for phone calls: Call each insurance company to discuss the status of unpaid bills for multiple patients. These calls typically require the patient’s name and the dates of service.
• Handle multiple claims in one call: Ensure that the insurance adjuster you’re speaking with understands that you’re following up on multiple outstanding claims and bills.
• Take immediate action: When you can take action, complete those bills and claims immediately and make notes in the patient’s internal file.

Each time you receive information about an outstanding bill, use your software program’s notes feature to enter this data. This way, you have details about what’s happening with the balance. These can help you keep track of when and how to take action.

3. Make reconciling fast and easy

A good chiropractor billing software should provide tools to make reconconciling fast and easy. ChiroSpring provides this ability using an automatic ERA reconciliation process. Once the ERA is analyzed, the system flags all charges that were not paid. This enables the user to make decisions such as if a charge should be disputed, re-submitted, part of the patient’s responsibility, or written off.

Using software to automate what used to be a labor-intensive process can free up hours of work per week. Imagine what your practice can accomplish when a process as daunting as reconciliation is improved.

4. Use software built for the way that you work

Choosing software made for the way that you work is important. ChiroSpring is not another EHR with modern features. It is built specifically for your practice and how it runs.

Comprehensive and highly automated software tools enable staff to use accounting and billing modules and collection tools, among other things, to simplify chiropractic billing management. Manage the entire insurance process using this software.

For example, when you use ChiroSpring’s smart billing app, you’ll find:

• Charges automatically categorizing according to their status: not-signed, not submitted, or submitted
• Folders for charges on hold and disputed charges
• Real-time accounts receivable information being available (e.g., the number of outstanding claims and the associated dollar amounts)

This smart billing app also provides information at a glance and allows users to:

• Re-submit claims
• Add or remove disputes
• Toggle between exporting or printing claims
• View charges for specific patients or insurance claims

Finally, ChiroSpring’s smart billing app provides filters, such as aging, date range, or insurance carrier, to zero in on the specific charges that you want to work on. Charges can be edited within the billing app in real time and even resubmitted at the click of a button. Having a powerful chiropractic software like ChiroSpring makes a huge difference.

5. Optimize your office’s workflow process

You can simplify your chiropractor billing process by optimizing your office’s workflow and using Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan notes—or SOAP notes—to help with this. Use the SOAP note feature to document each patient visit and set up a document workflow. The patient’s visit should flow into your software’s record and billing system automatically. These features also allow you to file records as soon as they finish processing into the billing system.

Many software options help medical practices improve their operations, manage their finances, and improve their office’s workflow processes. The trick is using a software solution specifically tailored to your chiropractic practice, how it operates, and how you and your staff work. Chiropractor billing software helps your practice better serve its patients and automates the billing process to prevent errors and the payroll to help you save money.

ChiroSpring is an all-in-one chiropractor billing solution that’s built specifically for chiropractors. This software’s automation helps chiropractors spend less time completing back-office tasks, save on operational costs, and spend more time face-to-face with patients. Reach out to one of our specialists today to learn how ChiroSpring can help you simplify your billing management.

ChiroSpring is an all-in-one practice management and EHR system built specifically for chiropractors to help them regain face-time with patients, spend less time on back-office tasks, maintain a limited staff, and save operational costs.

To see how ChiroSpring can help you simplify how you manage your practice, reach out to one of our specialists today!