Six Sigma Blogs

If your business or practice still utilizes old-fashioned paper-based appointment calendars or books, it’s time to move into the digital age. You can find the best appointment scheduling software for your office’s needs, and once you or your employees learn how to use it you’ll wonder why you ever tried anything else.

Obviously, appointment-scheduling software can keep track of client appointments and deadlines, but you can also use it in many other ways. As one example, you can use appointment-scheduling software to set up client or associate contact profiles by category. You may also want to set up profiles for contacts of organizational affiliates, vendors, and anybody else you need to contact during the course of business. It’s also useful if you want to create reports or manage projects.

If you have your business in more than one location, you can set it up so that you can utilize both wide area and local networks. Then, you can manage schedules for your multiple offices, no matter where you are physically. You can also take a look at everyone’s schedules all at once, no matter where they are, and then send out notifications when you want to schedule meeting times, for example. If you need to update employees or associates about important information, or you need to set out a document for everyone to review prior to a meeting, you can use your appointment scheduling software to manage those tasks for you.

That’s just part of what it can do for you, though. Because of its calendar versatility, you’ve got endless choices. You can set up so that it shows monthly, weekly, or even daily views. You can also use it so that it shows a standard appointment time increment that suits your needs best.

For example, if you run a doctor’s office, maybe you’ll need 15-minute increments per patient during normal office hours. However, if you need longer appointment blocks during hospital rounds, you can customize settings so that these blocks of time are marked out. Or, maybe you are a physical therapist and you spend an hour with each of your clients. The software can use time increments like 15 minutes or half an hour. If a patient reschedules, office personnel can drag and drop the rescheduled appointment to another timeslot, with visual verification when the drag and drop feature is used.

You can also maximize efficiency and scheduling by giving different colors to different clients, or types of clients. If you want to take a look at appointment calendars for various associates, you can retrieve them so that they are displayed side-by-side or individually.

With most appointment scheduling software, you can import data from existing databases to streamline the process. For example, if you have a list of prospective contacts on computer that you met at a seminar or sales conference, and you want to put them into your address book, you can use ASCII text functions that will define fields for you, such as a client first and last name, physical address, phone number and so on — as long as you put a comma between each field. You can also simply import data from a common spreadsheet format. With that, you can transfer a list of clients into your address book with just a click. Then, if you want to contact them or set up appointments, the data is right there for you to use.

Keeping track of employee productivity may also be an important part of your business. With this task, appointment scheduling software shows each associate’s available time, and then will show you how that associate has scheduled his or her appointments. This will show you how much time the associate was actually being productive. That’s very vital as a manager, as you can imagine. It’s especially useful if you need to supervise staff or if salary increases are about to come up for review.

Office efficiency can also be maximized if you instruct the software to send out reminders or send out invoices to particular customers. Good appointment scheduling software applications will give you simple word processing functions so that you can create templates for messages you use regularly. That means with just a couple of clicks of your mouse, you can create messages to send to customers or clients, depending on the task. Perhaps you want to remind a client of next week’s appointment, as one example. You can pretty much do whatever you need to, based upon your needs. Let’s say, for example, that you work in a physician’s office and you need to remind a specific group of associates before the next medical in-service date comes about.

These are just some of the advantages appointment-scheduling software can give you; similarly, if you give this software to everyone in your company as a manager or employer, you’re going to gain productivity there, too. This type of software will let employees access information from any location, and even let more than one staff member use it simultaneously. If you’re serious about improving productivity, or if you are a project manager who needs to keep on top of things, appointment scheduling software can make you much more effective and efficient.

Suzzi S Schmitz specializes in helping small businesses manage their calendar, reduce scheduling headaches, increase revenue and productivity, and improve customer loyalty, thru our networkable appointment scheduling software. Our appointment scheduling software is available in a single user\network version.

It’s important to know how many physicians your medical billing company serves, because it gives you an idea of the company’s scale — and in this industry, scale is key.

For instance, If a $150,000 per year billing system administrator is required, then a medical claims billing company with 200 clients only needs each of its client to carry $750 per year of that person’s cost. If a practice of four providers employed this person, then each provider would need to carry $37,500 per year of that person’s cost; this is the value of scale. A medical practice can achieve significant advantages by leveraging the superior scale of a mid- to large-sized medical insurance billing company.

A good medical company uses resources and technology that stand-alone medical practices can’t afford to support. Here are some examples of such resources and technology:

- A state-of-the-art billing system, offering advanced reporting and claim management capabilities. Such systems are often too expensive for a small to medium sized medical practice to afford; so they select a sub-standard system that they can afford.

- A pre-submission claim scrubber that applies the payers’ adjudication rules before the claims ever leave the medical insurance billing services four walls.

- Competent billing system managers, who stay up-to-date with the regularly-changing rules used by payers. A good system manager can help you collect on claims caught up in the system because of changing rules.

- Advanced collection tools, such as predicting payment yields from patients (such as the amount the patient owes times the likelihood they’ll pay).

- Deep rosters that won’t slow down when the company loses a single employee (which most practices are likely to experience).

- A dedicated group of individuals that follow-up on claims that have not had a response from the payer within a reasonable time frame.

These and other advantages show that most medical practices can’t afford the personnel and technology to match the services that a good, properly scaled medical billing company provides.

Most of the costs of maintaining these technologies and procedures are fixed, so medical billing companies tend to distribute the costs among their clients. This is why bigger medical billing companies can afford to serve practices better than smaller ones. Smaller medical billing companies may struggle to simply keep up with developing industry technology.

In conclusion, selecting a medical claims billing company that has the scale to deploy sophisticated technology and processes can provide the average medical practice a huge advantage in terms of their ability to do battle with the payers that are working hard to keep every penny they can.

Copyright 2009 by Carl Mays II

Are you sure your insurance companies are paying you according to your contracts? You may be surprised to know that it’s unlikely that they are. The average medical practice loses approximately five to ten percent of their collections because most insurance underpayments are never pursued or even identified.

A recent National Health Insurer Report Card compiled by the American Medical Association measured payment accuracy of seven major payers: Aetna, Anthem BCBS, Cigna, Coventry, Human, United Healthcare and Medicare. All of these payers to some degree strayed from contracted payment rate.

The worst offender was United (did not pay contracted rate in 38.4% of cases), followed by Cigna (did not pay contracted rate in 33.8% of cases), Aetna (did not pay contracted rate in 29.2% of cases), Anthem BCBS (did not pay contracted rate in 27.9% of cases), Humana (did not pay contracted rate in 15.8% of cases) and Coventry (did not pay contracted rate in 13.3% of cases). Even Medicare missed contracted payment rates in almost 2% of cases.

Tracking these underpayments is tricky. If you watch many different medical practices, you’ll find the same CPTs receiving underpayments, at around the same deficiency, from the same payer, and around the same period of time. But after a month, you may find the payer playing the game with different groups of CPTs to avoid being spotted.

Most underpayments aren’t substantial when considered one by one, but they can accumulate to thousands of dollars in the long run for any medical practice. Payers use a combination of switching the CPTs being underpaid every month and keeping underpayment amounts too small to attract notice, which makes these underpayments hard to spot.

Medical billing services may have difficulty finding these underpayments without comparing them with your contracted rates, as well as dealing with multiple procedure complications properly. Dealing with multiple complicated tables can be a challenge.

Billing services (and medical practices with their own in-house billing solutions) need to get and utilize industry technology to identify and correct underpayments. Most systems today are incapable of providing a workable solution.

Despite the complexity, however, it is worth solving this problem. Comparison of payments to allowables can increase a medical practice’s collections by 5 to 10 percent. This of course requires a strong process, powerful reporting technology and ability to track complex procedures methodically-in the end, it can however add thousands of dollars to your bottom line.

2009 copyright by Carl Mays II

Carl Mays is President and CEO of ClaimCare, a medical billing company that services clients across the nation. Carl is an expert in medical billing and physician practice management. He has an MBA from Wharton and a BSE from Princeton University.

A recent Medical Group Management Association survey showed that medical practices utilizing medical billing companies typical see improved performance across multiple dimensions. The survey focused on practices that used medical billing companies instead of in-house billing solutions.

Here are some of the interesting facts that the survey revealed:

- 73 percent of practices using medical billing companies reduce their AR;

- 73 percent also received higher collection rates;

- About three in every five practices have fewer denied or lost claims;

- 59 percent enjoyed significantly better reporting and practice performance insights; and

- Almost half experienced better staff productivity.

The MGMA study found that more than three out of every four practices that employ the services of a good medical billing company enjoy impressive improvements in productivity and performance. This confirms the long-held notion that utilizing a medical billing company improves a medical practice’s performance.

Some of the more obvious benefits of using a medical billing company include the following:

1. Medical billing companies have more scale to purchase and deploy the technologies required to properly submit claims, battle with insurance companies and collect personal balances.

2. A medical billing company can attract a higher caliber of billing specialists and retain these individuals.

3. Medical billing companies keep a deep bench of employees, so their clients don’t have to deal with the risk of losing a key billing employee from an in-house billing solution.

4. Billing companies are better positioned to properly utilize the technology they have.

5. Medical billing companies have a broader view of the medical industry as a whole because they deal with many different medical professionals at the same time. This knowledge helps them deliver better services to their clients.

If you’d like to see the survey for yourself, check the MGMA website.

Copyright 2009 by Carl Mays II

Before deciding upon a medical billing service be sure to visit ClaimCare’s Website. It provides in depth information about outsourcing medical billing. Carl Mays is a national renowned expert on medical billing operations and revenue cycle management.

A recent Medical Group Management Association survey showed that medical practices utilizing medical billing companies typical see improved performance across multiple dimensions. The survey focused on practices that used medical billing companies instead of in-house billing solutions.

The survey found that for practices switching from in-house billing to a medical billing company:

- Almost three in four practices that use medical billing companies reduce their AR;

- 73 percent realized higher collections;

- About three in every five practices have fewer denied or lost claims;

- 59 percent cited improved reporting and practice performance insights; and

- Almost half experienced better staff productivity.

The MGMA study found that more than three out of every four practices that employ the services of a good medical billing company enjoy impressive improvements in productivity and performance. This confirms the long-held notion that utilizing a medical billing company improves a medical practice’s performance.

This is not a surprise since medical billing companies have several advantages over most in-house billing solutions:

1. Medical billing companies are often better-armed to buy and use technology to submit claims properly, deal with insurance companies, and collect on personal balances.

2. A medical billing company can attract a higher caliber of billing specialists and retain these individuals.

3. Billing services keep a deep employee roster, giving medical practices the security that an in-house billing system can’t. For instance, practices using a medical billing company won’t face the risk of losing a key employee in the billing department.

4. Billing companies are better positioned to properly utilize the technology they have.

5. Medical billing companies have a broader view of the medical industry as a whole because they deal with many different medical professionals at the same time. This knowledge helps them deliver better services to their clients.

A copy of the survey is available from the MGMA’s website.

Copyright 2009 by Carl Mays II

Before deciding upon a medical billing service be sure to visit ClaimCare’s Website. It provides in depth information about outsourcing medical billing. Carl Mays is a national renowned expert on medical billing operations and revenue cycle management.

There’s a saying, “Selling is a numbers game” so the M.U.D. marketing method might be familiar to you…

This marketing strategy is based on the idea, “If you throw enough ‘mud’ on the wall, some of it will stick and you’ll make money.”

Disguised as a quick and easy method, M.U.D. Marketing finds people who are eager for your product or service. Among new business owners, this tops the list of favorite marketing strategies.

On the very surface, the M.U.D. methods appears to have an approach where business owners don’t have to waste resources research target markets and just sell to everyone while awaiting profits.

M.U.D. marketing makes you “look” busy but not productive. You produce very little results for your time, effort and money.

Think about it. You have a pile of mud right next to you. Let’s make it a big pile. You grab a handful and start throwing it at the wall.

Looking at the wall, what did you hit? Without knowing your target you continue to sling even more mud.

With so much mud, you could spend quite a bit of time before you use all the mud. Then you learn that the target was the plaque over the coffee center. You only hit that a few times.

The true meaning of M.U.D is Market Un-Determined or Marketing Un-Defined.

Both words spell out disaster for your business.

What if you took the time to find the target on that wall? Your results would be much different wouldn’t they?

Taking the time to research and identify your target market may seem like it’s going to take longer before you see results. In reality, it speeds up the process of achieving your goal…profitable business. You’ll see those results with reduce effort and time.

To identify your Target Market, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the problem your product or service solves?

2. What benefit will the client enjoy?

3. Who is the person with this problem?

4. What does that person look like? Male or Female or Both Stay at home mom or power executives. Are they baby boomers or students? Where do they hang out? What hobbies do they enjoy doing? etc.

Create a picture of your ideal consumer in great description.

M.U.D. marketing keeps you knocking your brains out trying to sell to a gazillion people when only a limited number really want what you offer. Is it any wonder you feel frustrated with your efforts.

If you feel stuck, stop practicing M.U.D. marketing and wasting valuable resources such as time.

If you continue trying to sell to everyone, you will end up selling to no one. And think of the cleaning bills to get that mess out of the carpet and off the wallpaper.

The survival and success of your business rests largely on time management. To survive and grow, you must consistently market your business and generate more and more profits.

Marketing is everything you do to make your target audience aware of your product/service. It convinces your target market that you provide what they want. It sets up the strategy for the path of least resistance to closing the sale. In other words all the activities leading to the sale.

Overwhelmed by the day-to-day tasks of running a business, entrepreneurs frequently put marketing at the tail end of their To-Do List. A.K.A. Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome, this will stifle your growth and success.

5 Time Management Strategies to Manage Your Time for Better Marketing and Sales Results

1. Clearly define your target market. Identify your ideal client, what he or she looks like and acts like. Write down their description in full detail. This is time well spent because it will simplify your marketing efforts.

2. The sales funnel is a great tool in effectively using your marketing time. Comparing the sales process to a funnel, a prospect starts at the top of the funnel (the widest part) and then works through a system to reach the narrow part where they become a customer. By using the sales funnel, you can gauge your marketing activities and quantify your prospects at each stage of the process. Create your sales funnel and define the activities needed to keep it full.

3. Put the law of accumulation on your side. An accumulation of tiny efforts that start slow but eventually snowballs and continues to grow while gathering momentum.

Put aside 15 minutes a day to fill the sales funnel with activities that keep it full. This time compounds equals 5 hours a month strictly focused on your marketing strategies. Consistently doing these activities will produce great results in sales and form a large body of work.

4. Devote time to follow up and keep your funnel full. Make follow up part of your sales funnel activities. Set aside a certain amount of time for follow up marketing and add that to your schedule.

5. Devote 20% of effort to the best marketing strategies that work for your business as not all marketing strategies are equal. When consistently devoting time to market your business, you will discover the best strategies for your business.

NOTE: Don’t confuse advertising with marketing. Your marketing plan should include some advertising. Marketing discovers what your client wants and you give it to them…provided it doesn’t fall into the realm of illegal; immoral; or fattening!

Your marketing reviews should consist of tracking, testing, and reviewing what works best for your business.

Suppose you spent 30 minutes a week on one activity that produced better results than another 30 minute activity that produced lackluster results, the better activity produced 20% more sales, wouldn’t you devote more time to the better activity?

It’s important to your business success not to let the “busyness” take over and squeeze out time for marketing. Each week devote time to keeping your sales funnel full and improve your sales by focusing on your top marketing activities.

The survival and success of your business rests largely on time management. To survive and grow, you must consistently market your business and generate more and more profits.

Use marketing to convince your target audience of your products and services, developing advertising strategies that leads to the path of least resistance to close a sale.

Overwhelmed by the day-to-day tasks of running a business, entrepreneurs frequently put marketing at the tail end of their To-Do List. A.K.A. Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome, this will stifle your growth and success.

5 Time Management Strategies to Manage Your Time for Better Marketing and Sales Results

1. Clearly define your target market. Identify your ideal client, what he or she looks like and acts like. Write down their description in full detail. This is time well spent because it will simplify your marketing efforts.

2. Maximize marketing time using a sales funnel. In comparison to the sales process, at the top of the funnel is the prospect and working through the system to the narrow region to becoming a customer. The sales funnel allows a gauge of marketing strategies and calculate prospective customers at various stages. Create your own funnel and tasks needed to be implemented.

3. Take advantage of the law of accumulation. Tiny efforts start slow but they will eventually build and grow, gaining momentum.

Block 15 minutes a day to do something that keeps your sales funnel full. Just 15 minutes for five days a week equals one hour and fifteen minutes of marketing time. That’s five hours a month devoted strictly to marketing your business. Doing a little bit everyday will produce great results. Consistently do those activities to keep adding to your sales funnel.

4. Devote time to follow up and keep your funnel full. Make follow up part of your sales funnel activities. Set aside a certain amount of time for follow up marketing and add that to your schedule.

5. Focus on the 20% of your activities that brings the greatest results. Consistent action will show you patterns. Some of your activities will produce better results with less effort. Set aside 30 minutes each week to review your marketing efforts. This small step will speed prospects through your sales funnel.

NOTE: Advertising and marketing is not the same thing. Advertising is a part of marketing while marketing itself is the process of targeting your customer and providing supply and demand under legal means.

Tracking, testing and reviewing your marketing activities will show what works best for your business.

Perhaps you devote a half hour a week to one activity and half hour on another but one produces 20% more sales. Which would one you prefer to devote your marketing time doing?

It’s important to your business success not to let the “busyness” take over and squeeze out time for marketing. Each week devote time to keeping your sales funnel full and improve your sales by focusing on your top marketing activities.