Practice Management Alert

Practices can measure output in terms of the number of examinations they're billing for, Kusiak notes. But "while this can be useful for comparing [similar] procedures, it is weak or useless for comparing unlike procedures," he warns. To accommodate differences in procedures, look at how many procedures your docs perform, and also take relative value units into account. "A monthly report on RVUs by referring physician can signal changes in referral patterns," he points out.
 
Evaluate your cash receipts in terms of dollars per RVU, Kusiak instructs. This will give you a good snapshot of what's happening within the practice, he says. You can use cash receipts to monitor the payment performance of a particular payer or payer class.
 
Your best bet for monitoring how long it takes your practice to get cash in hand is a "zero balance" report, Kusiak notes. "This looks at all claims which have been fully paid or adjusted within a given time period, and it is used to determine the true, collectible value of the accounts receivable at any point in time." (Note: Turn-around time for a claim to paid could be anywhere from 15 to 60 days, depending on the carrier.)
 
Benchmarking also can help you identify physician-specific problem areas, according to Cohen. That is, you can look at the amount of revenue a physician brings in compared with his total charges. "So if I have 12 physicians in the practice, what they generate in revenue compared to what their total charges are ranges anywhere from 30 to 70 percent," he offers.

 
Once you have those numbers, you can identify the physicians on the lower end of the spectrum and figure out why they aren't bringing in as much revenue as their colleagues. Often it's a coding or billing problem that can be corrected, Cohen says.
 
Many practice management software packages have the capability to produce the reports practices can use to conduct this kind of benchmarking activity, Cohen points out. And even if you don't have the capability to churn out complicated reports and thoroughly analyze them, simply being aware of how you're doing over time is helpful, he encourages.
 
"If you ask a practice on a scale of one to ten how they're doing," the number they give you is extremely valuable, Cohen emphasizes. Then the practice can look at areas it thinks could be improved upon, and make a concerted effort to improve.
 
"Three months later, ask the practice where they are now. If you look at the internal numbers, you'd be surprised at how close their assessment of where they are relates to the improvement or lack of improvement you find in the numbers," he reports. That means that while formal benchmarking is certainly useful to a billing office, deliberate self-awareness often can be every bit as valuable.