Experiencing a New Beginning with OP RCM
Vigour Pediatrics Sees Increases in Payments per Visit and Gross Collections with OP RCM
Located in New Orleans, Vigour Pediatrics has been serving families in the West Bank area since October 2015. Emily Vigour, M.D. owns the practice and has earned the love and respect of her patients. The practice provides pediatric care for children of all ages.
Struggling with Antiquated Billing Practices
When Dr. Vigour opened her practice in 2015, she outsourced her billing to a small, third-party billing company who used antiquated paper-based billing methods. The company picked up paper claims every week so they could manually input these into their “billing system”. “It was very challenging to keep up with what we sent and what was being billed out,” Dr. Vigour explained. “Billing was not hooked up to the EHR. Our bank account wasn’t looking good, and it was hard to collect results and run metrics.”
At the time, the practice was using a general EHR that they had leased from a hospital. The system came with perks, including a low cost, but Dr. Vigour wanted a more user-friendly EHR that focused on pediatrics.
She knew that her current setup was not optimal so she began searching for a partner — not simply a vendor — who could help her improve her financial outcomes and continue to provide the best care to her patients and their families.
Experiencing a New Beginning With OP RCM
Dr. Vigour found the partner she was looking for in Office Practicum. With the OP RCM service, Vigour Pediatrics has a team of experts who manage her account, including a dedicated account manager, an RCM process improvement associate, and a billing team. All teams are composed of pediatric-specific experts that expands and contracts with the practice’s business needs. As part of the service, the practice also receives OP’s pediatric-specific EHR, which seamlessly integrates the practice’s clinical and financial data.
When the EHR was up and running, so was OP RCM. “That was the beginning of the new billing,” Dr. Vigour said. “It felt like it just happened. We closed charts, and money went into the bank account.” There were no disruptions to financial operations and processes.
Seeing Financial and Clinical Success
After partnering with OP, Vigour Pediatrics saw the following financial results:
- Average payment-per-visit increase of $30.63 (19.1%)
- Gross collections increase from 34.1% to 41.4%
- Payments increased approximately 19.8% each month after joining OP RCM
When it comes to clinical results, Dr. Vigour said the templates are helpful, and she finds charting to be easy and user-friendly. However, the team’s favorite EHR component is vaccine management.
“Hands down, I would recommend OP to other pediatric practices,” Dr. Vigour added. “My business has improved, thanks to quarterly meetings with our OP account manager. OP RCM has forced me to do what I wanted to get out of this system, which is to check my metrics and make sure my small business can stay in a thriving situation.”