Nisos Technologies

05/25/2023

Learn the various steps in patient intake and how each step affects another department. Understanding the patient intake process (whether it is new patient intake or existing patient intake) will help you with streamlining it. Full guide link https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

05/20/2023

Gathering patient reported outcomes can be done via software or your healthcare callcenter. Try it out https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

Usually, the technicians do this and the process eats up time.

Meanwhile, patients can report their outcomes from the past visit very easily either from home or using a patient intake app as well.

You should ensure that the patient does report outcomes from the last visit either electronically or in the office so it would improve clinical workflow efficiencies.

The quicker you are done with a day’s patient load, the faster you can go home 🙂

05/19/2023

Want to stop losing patients? We reduced “lost” patient leads to less than 10 percent. In effect, the group billed for 90% of inbound appointment related calls. Here's the case study. https://www.nisostech.com/reduced-lost-patient-leads-to-less-than-10/

05/19/2023

We have heard all kinds of excuses from patients for not being able to pay copays and from front desk staff for not being able to collect copays.

Understand that collecting copays is REQUIRED by most payers as that’s part of “patient cost sharing”.

If you do not collect copays, your provider runs the risk of getting into trouble with the federal anti kickback statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b.

Additionally, none of the payers like that either and eventually your provider will get into trouble for doing so routinely.

Collect copays – each and every time. There’s no 2 ways around this.

https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

05/19/2023

Make sure your patient contact center collects patient’s payment method and details (for credit card of file program). Read more https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

In the past, payers were covering large portions of a patient’s healthcare costs. These days, the trend is for payers to pass on a larger portion of healthcare costs to the patients (members). This trend is not about to change anytime soon.

So, while in the past, you didn’t really have a credit card on file program with your patients, it is critical for you to do so now. You can use a healthcare CRM and patient intake software for this.

Make sure the consent forms are also signed so that the patient consents to being treated only if you are allowed to collect balance dues directly from their credit card (without having to employ a collection agency).

05/19/2023

Healthcare leaders should push their patient intake staff to pay special attention to physician referral forms (if the patient was referred) - our guide (https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/ ) helps you understand this better.

This is where the medical marketing department is counting on you.

The medical marketing department is tasked with generating physician referrals (in addition to digital marketing).

They keep knocking on doors of referring providers to get patient referrals. In exchange, the referring provider expects their patients to get an appointment ASAP, to be kept in the loop about whether the patient kept the appointment or not, to get consult notes within 24 hours of the patient appointment.

Be a good partner to your referring provider partners by keeping them in the loop about everything – they will reward you with more patient referrals.

Meanwhile, open up patient access to the maximum, and the referring partner’s patients will reward you with patient reviews.

You can use any patient intake software for this.

05/18/2023

Your patient intake software should help you with Insurance eligibility and benefits of patient’s insurance plan

- Again, you are directly controlling the outcomes that your medical billing can produce. If you are not checking insurance eligibility for the provider that is going to see the patient, you are bound to screw up.
- Just because your practice accepts a plan, doesn’t mean that every provider is credentialed with that plan, for that location. Make sure you understand the nuances and make sure that the appointment is made with a provider that is credentialed for that plan.
- Just because a patient is “eligible” still does not mean that the member benefits cover the CPT that the provider is going to perform.
- Be aware of this. It is always better to have all pertinent insurance details with enough time on your hands to be able to rectify issues (if any).

Digital patient intake forms help increase your medical practice margins by reducing manual labor and the need for increased staff.

05/18/2023

Want to reduce medical billing errors and stop losing monies due? Do better patient intake! One example (guide https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/) -

** Insurance details of the patient (or whether they are a self pay) along with insurance card details. **
This one is crucial and you know that you are supposed to get the insurance details MUCH before the patient comes into the office. Once the patient is in the clinic, you don’t really have a way to send them back because their insurance eligibility was not verified – do you? Get the patient’s insurance details, preferably a proof of the patient insurance as well, before the patient ever comes in to see your providers. This directly affects your medical billing department from collecting dues from the patient. If a patient is self pay, you know very well that they need to be given an estimated cost of care and if they can afford your fees, then they can be given a confirmed appointment.

05/18/2023

If you understand how the patient intake process affects the rest of the healthcare organization - you will be in a better position to excel at your job AND reduce a lot lost revenues. https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

** Patient demographics data **
While you, as a front desk might not realize this… this is super critical for medical billing. This alone can mean collecting from insurance payers vs not collecting from the claims. Be VERY, VERY careful about entering demographics data and ALWAYS ensure that you have the absolute latest demographics information from the patient.

** Verification of patient’s identity (there’s plenty of patient identity fraud) **
You as a front desk or call center person might not realize the impact a patient’s identity fraud might have. But the fines are HUGE and the repercussions are disastrous.

** Patient’s medical, family, social & clinical history, medication list **
Know that this is the single item that takes most of a technician’s time. The more time a technician takes to fill out patient’s history, Chief complaint etc, the longer it takes to work up a patient.
This leads to further delays and longer patient wait times. The longer the patient wait times, patient satisfaction reduces dramatically. As of 2019, CMS has already relaxed the rules around who documents this portion. Try to get this done so it contributes to patients getting in and out the clinic faster. Patients usually don’t do a great job of remembering the medications they are taking when they are at your office. You can use a patient intake software instead. In addition to this, you can hire a call center team to get the history / intake data if needed.

05/17/2023

is plagued with no-show patients. Here's how our callcenter team reduces no-shows for . Your own team can do it too! https://www.nisostech.com/reduced-no-shows-by-50/

05/17/2023

This is what happens during a patient visit, You can save time/labor by having your medical contact center handle these steps - https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

1. The patient is given a printed paper to “sign in”. Then the actual checkin process starts with the patient being handed a stack of papers to fill out in the waiting area.
2. The patient starts entering the following details on paper
- Patient demographics data
- Verification of patient’s identity
- Patient’s chief complaint, history of present illness, medical, family, surgical, social histories, allergy list, medication list. The patient typically is not able to provide all the medication names and writes in “layman” terms/language.
3. Various HIPAA and consent forms signed by the patient
4. Insurance details of the patient (or whether they are a self pay) along with insurance card details
5. Physician referral form, if the patient was referred.
6. Patient’s payment method and details (for credit card of file program – read our thoughts on patient payments for practice managers)
7. Patient reported outcomes . Easy to do if you use our patient intake software for improving the patient intake process.
8. The patient takes the next 15-20 mins to fill out these details and hands these to the front desk. Some practices enter all these info into the EMR and some just scan these into the patient record or scan and send these to an outsourced medical BPO company to update their EMRs with this information. .. many more steps..

Digital patient intake forms help increase your medical practice margins by reducing manual labor and the need for increased staff.

05/17/2023

Do you see where you can save time and improve patient satisfaction in these typical pre-visit steps of patient intake? https://www.nisostech.com/digital-patient-intake-guide/

1. A patient calls the office, stays on hold for 5+ mins, then our front desk answers the call. 2. The frontdesk asks for the patient’s insurance and if we accept the patient’s insurance, the patient asks for an appointment date/time. Sometimes the patient agrees to pay out of pocket as well.
3. The frontdesk gives the patient an appointment date/time, then proceeds to take down the name, phone number, insurance details of the patient. The frontdesk tells the patient to bring a valid photo ID and to carry their insurance card with them.