Family Medical Center Success Story: Reduced Claim Rejections and Increased Payments

"Let our family take care of your family"—that’s the motto of Family Medical Center, a small privately owned practice in Cedar Park, Texas. “Our goal is to treat patients with kindness and respect while providing the highest level of quality medical care,” says Diana Kling, BSW, LPN, practice manager. “But our efforts were being hampered by a complicated EHR.”

The group’s owner and founder, Dr. Steven Foster, was no stranger to technology. He had built all of the office’s computers himself, even the servers, back when the industry moved to electronic medical records.

Challenge: The Need for a Powerful Billing Solution

“We started out with a sophisticated EHR that met the requirements of Dr. Foster,” says Kling. “But we quickly realized that we needed great practice management software for our billing as well. We asked our EHR provider for advice, and they pointed us to Kareo.”

Since 2011, Family Medical Center has relied on Kareo Billing to automate practice management, including scheduling, billing and collections. Along with an easier user interface, the practice also benefits from Kareo’s great billing analytics and the ability to quickly track every claim.

Solution: 24-Hour Reimbursement

“The most immediate benefit from Kareo was in insurance payment turnaround. I’m really big on revenue cycle management. With Kareo, I can post every payment that came in, and bill every charge submitted to me during the day before I go home at night,” Kling notes.

“In days of yore, it would take between 30 and 45 days for insurance claims to adjudicate,” she continues. “Today, many payers like Blue Cross and TriCare process claims on a daily basis."

“Thanks in large part to Kareo, we can be paid tomorrow for a service done today. That’s a really big deal!”
—Diana Kling, Manager

Solution: Reduced Rejections

Insurance rejections are down with Kareo too. “Our rejections were always pretty low, because we’re meticulous about getting and entering payer information correctly,” Kling says. “Nevertheless, Kareo lets us do a better job managing eligibility in the first place. Now we’re seeing only the occasional rejection—typically when the patient has misunderstood their coverage.”

Results: Quicker Collections

Seemingly minor system capabilities contribute to streamlining the practice. “With Kareo’s Patient Collections solution, patients can opt to have the system remember their credit card numbers. They appreciate this, because it speeds up their check-out process. On our end, we like being able to collect payments in real time using the Patient Payments credit card reader. Of course, we appreciate anything that lets us save practice time,” says Kling.

Collections are less of a hassle, too. “Kareo helps us keep statements up to date, so patients have accurate balances for their health savings accounts. They can view all the details themselves in the patient payment portal, and do a better job managing their finances.”

Combined system improvements have gone straight to the practice’s bottom line. “Put together, Kareo’s capabilities have contributed to a dramatic drop in our overall payment velocity, from 30 days to just 11,” Kling notes.

Conclusion: Speedy Ramp-Up

For providers, one of the main attractions of a small practice over corporate medicine is the ability to do things their own way. “All these individual preferences can make it difficult to train new staff members,” says Kling. “That’s why Kareo’s user friendliness is so important to us. We can have the best of both worlds – customization when we need it, combined with speedy onboarding.”

Kling gives an example: “We recently started a new medical assistant at the front desk. By the end of her first day, she was doing just fine with all the Kareo basics like scheduling and insurance verification.”

When other medical offices call for advice on practice management systems, Kling doesn’t hesitate to recommend Kareo Billing. “I always sing Kareo’s praises, especially when it comes to user friendliness and ease of training,” she says. “And you can’t beat Kareo as a tool for cash flow management.”

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To see how Kareo can help you reduce claim rejections and increase velocity of payments and reimbursements: