NFMGMA May 2012 Educational Session – ‘Point of Service Collections: What You Need to Do Now!’

Karen Zupko – Karen Zupko & Associates, Inc.

by Richard Stokes

Running a for-profit business where you don’t collect the fees for your services rendered is like owning a broken pencil……..it’s pointless!  This of course never happens to anyone working in the medical field (insert sarcasm here).  Karen Zupko of Karen Zupko & Associates, Inc. is our speaker this month and she is going to be giving us some valuable insight as to how practices can optimize physician reimbursements from patients.  Karen has been advising physicians across the United States since 1974 and so she brings a tremendous amount of knowledge, experience and acumen to our group.

So, why is this is important today?  Well other than the obvious reason that it makes sense to collect your money, Karen states that; “the average patient today has an obligation of about $2,250 in out of pocket expenses to pay before their insurance kicks in.”  Multiply that by the number of patients that your practice sees every year and that could be a significant sum of money.  Are you leaving any on the table?

Here are some things you can expect to take away from Karen’s presentation:

  • Successful participants will gain an appreciation of the payment technologies that can help them achieve more payments and faster.
  • The, “we’ve always done it this way” philosophy is expensive, limits raises and threatens job security.

After her presentation, some of the items that Karen would like you to take action on, in your practice would be:

  • Measure your average point of service collections in your practice and compare that after 6 weeks of doing things differently.
  • Count the number of statements you are sending out for amounts of $35 or less.
  • Try RTA methods and use claims estimators more willingly.

Karen states that, “Participants who decide to run their AR reports differently will see the opportunity of what she will be talking about since patient balances are often ‘hidden’ in reports.”

So, as budgets tighten and practices get squeezed you’ve got to find ways to drive revenue in to your practice.  It sounds like we’re in for some great information and by the way; Karen’s also got some great resources to share with us which you’ll only hear about if you attend.  So, if you haven’t already registered for the event, what are you waiting for?  North Fulton MGMA

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Richard Stokes: As the Director of Sales for Network 1, Richard identifies “future” clients that can benefit from the support of an experienced, outsourced IT team. He helps clients and prospects find technology solutions they need to achieve better productivity and efficiency so they can focus on making money and growing their businesses.

Network 1 designs, builds and supports the IT you need to run your business more securely, productively and successfully. Whether you want to outsource all of your IT needs to a reliable, responsive, service-oriented company, or need to supplement the work of your internal IT staff, we will carefully evaluate where you are now, discuss where you want to go and implement and support a plan to get you there with as little interruption as possible.

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