- Chase the lowest fee
If you know me, you know this is my pet peeve. Radiologist often obsess about a half of a point in billing cost and don’t even notice a five point drop in collections. One point in collections is the same as one point in fee.
There are billing companies out there who make it their practice to be the low-cost provider. They also happen to be the low collections providers as evidenced by their “churn and burn” client turnover.
The groups that choose rate over service are almost always the ones that are convinced that all billing companies are the same and can’t be trusted. They bounce from company to company chasing the lowest rate and then opine that all billing companies are bad. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Read more about the true cost of radiology billing.
- Don’t know enough to keep a watchful eye
Many radiology groups have a trusted advisor to watch over billing. This might be a practice manager, accountant or billing manager. The radiologists themselves don’t really look at the numbers. Even if they did, they often don’t know what’s in front of them. Big mistake.
Dexios has cleaned up some big messes from radiology groups. Sometimes the trusted advisors aren’t that trustworthy. Sometimes they’re incompetent or overwhelmed or protecting people.
Take the time to get educated. Contact Dexios for one of our quarterly free Billing for Radiologists 101 online webinars.
- Think average = good
We participate in several forums for radiologists. It is comical to hear radiologists brag online about mediocre collections or Days in AR like they just won the Super Bowl. If we grade on the traditional scale, average is a C. We seldom get excited by “middling” unless we are coming from “bad”, right? Parents are seldom excited about C’s from their kids unless they were getting D’s and F’s before.
- Don’t look at the big picture like PQRS/MIPS
Billing is multi-faceted. You must juggle a lot of things today to be successful. Look at the whole picture for the success of your billing department. You can’t forgo things like MIPS, or it will come back and bite you in the future.
Related: Radiology Billing vs. Generic Billing—There is a difference!
- Buy from impressive people they will never see again
A common mistake people make when deciding on their billing company is buying the sizzle, not the bacon. A lot of impressive people show up at their door—most of whom they’ll never see again. Make sure the people doing your billing are as impressive as the suits that show up for the sale. These are the people that will be determining your success.
- Buy into bogus indicators of the probability of success
Whenever you ask a group of radiologists what determines the probability of success, they inevitably start down the path of false predictors. What do they say are the predictors of success? Typically, one or more of the following:
The billing company is national.
The billing company is local.
The billing company has a big name on staff.
The billing company is the biggest/fastest growing/etc.
There are predictors of success, but the above just aren’t valid. Here is the valid predictor…
The billing company gets higher than average collections for all their clients, or all the clients in your area.
Don’t settle for just average
Let Dexios help you get on the right track with your radiology practice billing. Our free, no obligation coding audit and billing analysis is designed to compare your practice’s billing metrics with national averages. This also includes prioritized recommendations for how to improve performance.
Get started now, contact Dexios.