SRS

Profile

With five locations and 15 physicians, Cardiac Specialists is a high-performance, high-volume practice specializing in cardiovascular health. Seven years ago, the practice began using the SRS Electronic Health Record (EHR), achieving significant overhead reductions and revenue gains totaling $2,500,000. In the face of these gains in productivity, the leadership at Cardiac Specialists realized that our practice management system was outdated and was limiting our organizational effectiveness.

Problem

We wanted to switch from our old system to one that would allow greater control over our revenue cycle, as well as a system that would eliminate the near-impossible task of training staff in five separate offices on the millions of payer rules. With these goals in mind, we began to search for a PM system that would be easy to use and would allow us to streamline our billing process.

Solution

It quickly became apparent to us that the CareTracker Practice Management system would be the best possible solution for our needs. A dashboard format provides instant, up-to-date performance information, enabling our management team to obtain an immediate snapshot of how the practice is functioning. Instantaneous access to practice data is available from any computer and is facilitated by the fact that the PM system is a Web-based application. Furthermore, our IT and billing staff no longer need to get involved in modifications to the software and the payer rules because these are updated seamlessly and in real-time. The system includes a centralized list of referring physicians, payers, and plans that is automatically updated as changes occur. This flawless list eliminated our messy “do-not-use” codes and duplicate entries.

CareTracker also satisfied our desire for a system that the staff could easily master. The training process was extremely short and included both live and recorded sessions. New staff members that have joined our practice since the introduction of CareTracker have quickly learned the system.

Results

Our practice immediately benefitted from using the CareTracker Practice Management system. After implementation, we experienced a shortened revenue cycle: our days in A/R decreased to only 25 days. Our practice now has almost nothing remaining in A/R beyond 30 and 60 days. Physicians and staff members enter charges electronically through visit-capture screens that were customized specifically for our practice, and following submission, the practice management system engages in automated claims scrubbing, which results in cleaner claims. The system then automatically goes out and checks on the status of each claim to catch any potential denials. Since implementing CareTracker, we have improved our revenue cycle, and do so with fewer billing resources.

Additionally, patient eligibility is checked automatically starting up to five days before an appointment, so our staff only has to attend to the few patients who are flagged as having an insurance eligibility issue. We often have patients who book appointments six months in advance and whose insurance changes during this time period; when this happens, CareTracker alerts our staff prior to the appointment. We also no longer have to manage the chaos that ensued when a patient arrived with a new insurance plan that required a referral or pre-approval for the scheduled procedure.

Eligibility checking, claims scrubbing, and claims status checking result in more than 90% of claims being paid at first pass, and there are fewer denied claims overall. When a claim doesn’t get paid first time around, there is a lot of work that needs to be done, and the probability of getting paid is reduced. CareTracker allows us to get it right the first time, which is key for effective billing.

We have also gained increased control of our practice’s finances through the use of CareTracker’s powerful reporting capabilities. While most systems are equipped with only basic reporting capabilities and require the purchase of a separate product for more advanced reporting, CareTracker includes a flexible and robust reporting package. We use both default and easily generated custom reports to analyze revenue and trends by location, time period, and provider. Additionally, the system allows our practice to schedule and automatically run sets of reports.

By implementing the CareTracker Practice Management system, we built upon the productivity gains that we had achieved from using the SRS EHR. The PM and EHR both occupy a central role in our practice. Our physicians have become very accustomed to using SRS and electronic billing—they have completely integrated the technology into their routines.

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