Recently I helped a medical secretary understand the noble art of medical invoicing.
Having your medical secretary handling medical invoicing isn’t something I’d recommend though for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, over the years medical invoicing or medical billing has become far, far too complicated to be left to the untrained.
This is not to say a medical secretary can’t understand how to invoice.
Of course, he or she can.
Given enough time and effort, and, training the ability can be developed.
Time
The main reason I’m against it is simply time.
If you think about it there are only a certain number of hours in a working day.
Into those hours a whole multitude of tasks has to be done.
In the case of your medical secretary most likely she’ll have to answer the phone, book clinics, answer emails, meet patients, take down patient details and generally act as the first port of call for any issue within your practice.
And then sometimes is added the task of medical invoicing.
Invoicing an entire clinic list does NOT take that long. Providing there are no interruptions and all the details are correct.
Add numerous interruptions (the phone rings, the hospital want to alter clinic times or YOU want something) and medical invoicing will prove difficult.
Then throw in incorrect patient insurance details – even MISSING patient insurance details – and the thing becomes a nightmare.
Actually Happened.
First off and for the record, she was – and still is – very, very good at her job.
I spent enough time to train her and demonstrate what to do if the patient’s records were missing, where to find a CCSD code, how to find the correct fee from an insurance company.
I also trained her on how to allocate cash and deal with shortfalls and excess amounts deducted by an insurance company.
She got it.
All of it.
She was more than capable of handling any medical invoicing.
She actually did the invoice correctly.
Right up to the point she had to do it on top of her other aforementioned duties.
I did warn her this might happen. My fears were shared both with her and with the consultant.
The consultant was of the opinion that provided all the details were correct, there should not be a problem.
Accident Waiting to Happen
What was really significant was the med-sec telling both of us she was simply running out of time.
She would start the invoicing process first thing in the morning.
But before she had even blinked (her words) it was6 pm and time to go home.
So she tried to work faster.
And that’s when the mistakes started to creep in one after the other.
Sometimes she’d undercharge a surgical episode.
Or she would omit to charge a consultation because she hadn’t got time to stop and correct the patient’s details that were wrong.
So she tried – and I truly admire her determination – to “fit” the invoicing in around all her other duties.
The whole invoicing process collapsed!
It was fascinating to hear her talk about invoicing taking an hour each day when straightforward but take “ages” a day when it was not.
She literally was losing track of time.
If that wasn’t bad enough losing track of time was having a knock-on effect.
She simply didn’t realize that other tasks she had to complete each day weren’t getting done.
Of course, this tale is all very interesting but what is the worth in it?
The worth comes from realizing WHY the cash flow had suffered, WHY existing patients were starting to complain the phone wasn’t being answered and WHY new patients couldn’t make an appointment!
All three of those are crucial for the bottom line of any private medical practice.
There are only a certain number of hours in a day.
Try and cram into those hours more than you can successfully achieve and you could very easily find your private practice in difficulties.
In other words, if you lose track of time, sooner or later you will lose money too.
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk