So you are working in a primary care physician role, working far too many hours and still in disbelief that you aren’t seeing more of an income to match your hours and effort; the solution is not working more clinic hours; instead maximize the income you are already entitled to. Over the next few months we are going to discuss some of the practical and simple steps you can take to increase your income – without adding a single minute to what you already work. Together we are going to ensure sure you are billing what you are entitled to so that you can work smarter and not harder!
The first income strategy we are going to discuss is making sure you are billing for services you are providing, including all those urine dips and rapid strep tests you provide…yes we realize that these are each worth much less than a dollar when you factor in primary care agreements and that most of these codes are “in the basket”. We all know that certain bonuses are accumulated throughout the fiscal year depending on attainment levels, one of the bonuses you should definitely be receiving is services provided. Even though those G010’s don’t seem valuable at face value, probably to the point you feel it’s not worth your time making note of it, these silly little codes are actually going to make all the difference to your service level bonus… or lack thereof.
Some of the medical services you are providing are easily overlooked for example let's look at urine dips (G010); are you remembering to track G010 for UTI patients who have their urine dipped prior to seeing the physician? The other place urine dips routinely are overlooked is with prenatal appointments, especially if there is a nurse performing the initial patient overview. There are many more situations G010 is overlooked some examples include diabetic and gestationally diabetic patients, patients with kidney issues, etc. Is your nurse or receptionist (whoever is responsible for urine dips) aware to make note that the service was provided? If you are missing only four G010 codes a week – that will end up being approximately (depending on your group agreement) than $200 a year that counted towards your service bonus level. Over the course of your fiscal year $200 doesn’t seem like much, but when that $200 was what you needed to bump you up to the next bonus level, really it means you lost out on at least a $2000.00 bonus – following this line of thought it quickly becomes obvious that every single urine dip becomes worth more than just a urine dip. Services you need to focus on billing aren’t just limited to urine dips, they also include rapid strep tests (G014) and many other services – for further details and eligibility requirements members can see our billing module search function.
Work Smarter, Not Harder!
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