Measurable Solutions

Physical Therapists Cover All Bases to Win the Reimbursement Battle and Increase their Patient Visits in the New Year.

Measurable Solutions, a management training and consulting company, and, Billing Dynamix a physical therapy billing service network, are joining forces to provide practice owners with needed tools to improve their reimbursements and expand their practices.

Dr. Lisa J. Allen, DPT

Bellmore, NY (PRWEB) October 25, 2010 - "I hired my second PT in 3 months! My third PT after 7 months! I am still hiring and growing. I love how my own personal economy is indifferent to whatever else is occurring!" says Dr. Lisa J. Allen, PT, owner of BioMechanic Physical Therapy in Leesburg VA, and a client of Measurable Solultions.

"We invited Measurable Solutions, a management training and consulting company, to teach our growing network of practice owners the needed tools to expand their practices in a turbulent economic environment," says David Macolino, President of Billing Dynamix, a platform for physical therapy practice management, documentation, and billing.

"The first most important aspect of managing your own practice is to maximize all activities that generate revenue and minimize the time you have to spend on any activities that cost you resources or time," says Shaun Kirk, physical therapist and President of Measurable Solutions. "So that means that if more people knew about how good you are at what you do, then your practice expands. But if you spend lots of time documenting your visits or following up on billing instead of marketing or caring for your patients, then your practice will stagnate and you will drive yourself sick working too hard for too little."

"Healthcare cost reduction will continue to be the mantra of our economy," says David Macolino. "But we want our clients to continue to grow their profitability. So our answer to declining reimbursements and increasing regulatory scrutiny is patient growth and office management automation. Measurable Solutions helps building thriving practices by turning clinicians into effective executives."

"We discovered that Billing Dynamix is especially effective in reducing practice administration costs and increasing its revenue. It's unique all-in-one automated solution covers every aspect of profitable practice management from patient loyalty management, to rapid and compliant documentation, and to disciplined, 100% transparent, and accountable billing," concludes Shaun Kirk.

About Measurable Solutions (www.measurable-solutions.com)

Measurable Solutions trains private practitioners to become executives in their practice. The primary focus is on applying an effective public relations and marketing program that increases patient volume. Their simple step-by-step program called the New Patient Course has helped nearly 2000 private practices expand without the owner having to leave the office and visit physicians. It works for the big and the small practices alike.

About Billing Dynamix (www.billingdynamix.com)

Billing Dynamix unites hundreds of physical therapy and rehab billing systems nationwide on a single system. By consolidating operations, Billing Dynamix tracks payer performance from a single point of control, shares payer compliance rules globally, and continuously matches its physical therapy and rehabilitation billing rules to evolving payer's environment. Every provider on the network can view in real-time, the status of every single claim in process 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can find out more at billingdynamix.com.

In the report "Aligning Incentives in Medicare", from Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC) to the Congress, chapter 8 is addressing the growth of ancillary services in physicians' offices.

The report states that many physicians have in recent years expanded their practices to provide more services including physical therapy and that evidently some PT services ordered are not appropriate. Medicare's fee-for-service payment systems seems according to the report create incentives to increase the volume of services.

The report then goes onto describing a preferred approach that would reward providers when constraining volume growth while improving the quality.

You can read the full report HERE.

Measurable Solutions asked one of their clients in California, Ida Hirst, of her experience with the rate reductions that Anthem has put forth.

"This has been a hot topic among practice owners since this only effects private practices, not hospital or physician owned clinics.  Many clinics have opted to terminate their provider relationships with Anthem BC.

I have decided to stay in.  A careful search through EOBs coming through my office finds that many of our PPO contracts and certainly our Work Comp visits are paying below the $75 per visit.  I then took an average of what we receive currently from our Anthem BC visits and found that due to the way they cascade for reimbursement that we have a hard time getting a significant amount more than this for the average visit if we are completely honest with our coding.  The only way to consistently get the good payment would be to perform the same procedure for a full 45 to 60 minutes every time.  This rarely happens.

I am not happy about this change, but it has spurred me to make decisions to gradually drop other low paying insurance contracts and to plug a way at converting to a cash based practice where people get a great service in a short amount of time for a very reasonable fee.  We will provide them with a super bill to submit directly to their carrier if they wish.  Unfortunately to drop Anthem BC would mean a drop in patient volume by almost 40% and we can not handle that dramatic of a change right now.  I am respectful of those practices who were able to either never depend on Anthem or are now ready to do so."

Ida Hirst
Pleasanton, CA

Another release from Measurable Solutions is the Solutions to Declining Reimbursements Course.

There are probably areas in your business that you have skipped or that you are paying less attention to that can make a BIG difference in your bottom line. This course help you fix this and will give you tools to get paid in a shrinking reimbursement environment. Read more at the website:
measurable-solutions.com

It's not a question of 'if' you'll be audited - it's a question of when.

To stay on top of the game, look out for Measurable Solutions' newest Newsletter hitting mail boxes this November. It will cover all things Medicare and Reimbursement related including:

Medicare Compliance: An Issue PTs Can’t Afford to Ignore
By Steve Ryland PT, DPT, Owner of Beachside Physical Therapy & Beachside Health Studio