15 Dec Always Include These 3 Data Analytics in Your Billing Reports

As a pediatrician, your primary goal is to deliver the best possible healthcare to your patients. Just as it’s important for your patients to have regular check-ups as part of their wellness, it’s also critical to regularly evaluate your pediatric office’s financial health. But how?

There are some key analytics that you can consistently examine to stay on top of your practice’s financial well-being, while successfully planning for the future. 

Whether your billing is done in-house or outsourced, here are 3 data analytics you should always have included in your monthly and yearly billing reports.

1. Number of days in Accounts Receivable (A/R)

You should look at every claim that is outstanding. When examining this data, it’s helpful to group all outstanding bills into the following buckets: 30 days or less, 31-60 days, 61-90 days, 91-120 days, and more than 120 days.

Why? Because a bill that’s in the 30 days or less category is more likely to be paid than one that’s been outstanding for more than 120 days.

Also, explore any trends you see. If a certain bucket is growing, like the 61-90 category, dig more deeply. Perhaps there’s a specific denial you’re repeatedly seeing that would explain the increase. 

2. Monthly charges, payments, and adjustments

This includes the total charged out to insurance payers, the total amount payers & patients paid to you, and the total amount adjusted off.

In pediatrics, it’s normal for this data to vary seasonally — meaning these numbers may be noticeably higher in certain months than in others. What you want to examine is the same month from year to year. For example, is November of last year similar to November of this year?

How these analytics are presented doesn’t really matter. Whether the format is a spreadsheet or a graph, the important thing is being able to see trends from year to year.

3. Number of encounters

How many visits did you have this month and last month? What was the number of patients seen this time last year? Knowing these statistics is crucial when determining if your practice is growing or shrinking. Don’t you want to know if you’re meeting your business goals in that area?

Another related item is the number of well visits versus sick visits. Again, this will change based on seasonality. For example, in September, 30-35 percent of appointments might be well visits, while in January and February, more sick patients will need your care.

Tracking the well-visit ratio is important because that’s how you figure out what your charges and payments should be. Generally speaking, a well visit will charge more and pay more than a sick visit. A common reason for low charges is that the number of well visits is low.

Takeaways and next steps

With all of these statistics, it’s important that you and your team members understand what you’re seeing and how to problem-solve. Occasional low numbers or unpredictable trends are not necessarily bad. The key is being able to understand what you’re seeing, explain why it’s happening, and make a plan for the future.

If you don’t have the time or expertise to do this in-house you should consider outsourcing to a pediatric-specific billing company. They would not only help with your billing but, if they’re any good, will provide you with reports that show you how you’re performing over time and versus benchmarks. 

To read about more critical data analytics to include in your billing reports, download “Five Essential KPIs Pediatric Offices Need to Track.”