Physical therapy is typically the direct manipulation and treatment of muscles, joints and parts of the bodies that suffer problems as a result of illness or injury. A physical therapist can use massage, strength training or heat and cold therapy as a means of treating patients and there are many practices and clinics that provide this service. While their primary aim is medical treatment they need to be run as businesses to make profit and an important part of a clinic is physical therapy billing.
While many physical therapists concentrate on providing good medical care for their patients, it is also crucial that they pay attention to physical therapy billing. A practice needs to be run as an effective business to ensure good cash flow and make sure money is available when needed and effective billing for services provided is crucial for this.
Generally the options for physical therapy billing are for the practice to carry this out itself or contract it out to a medical billing company and there are pros and cons to both. While contracting the work out leaves a clinic free to concentrate on finding patients and providing therapy, it can be an added expense in running a practice. However, billing companies have more expertise in the job and for a practice that has little experience in billing it can be an option to consider. A practice which does its own billing will have more control over this, although it can mean less time for treating patients as a therapist will need time to take care of billing also.
While smaller physical therapy practices that decide to do their own billing may be able to deal with this manually, it can be worth investing in software that can help with the process. There are a few billing software packages on the market designed specifically for physical therapy clinics. MPM Soft is an example of a company that produces physical therapy billing software and they have products that are suitable for small, medium and large practices. Their software is easy to load on a network, has secure password protected login and can be set up for use by a number of users. It can be used to create a patient database, as well as producing paper and electronic billing claims and keeping track of payments.
Quick Practice is another example of a company the produces medical billing software that can be used by a physical therapy practice. They have three versions of their software available and this includes standard, deluxe and professional packages with the cost for these varying from $599 to $1,799.
Whether using manual or software based physical therapy billing there are a few things that need to be considered for this to be successful. Billing patients immediately following service and receiving their portion of the payment at that time is a good practice to set up. Billing the insurance company immediately following treating a patient is also important and where possible it is better to use electronic billing. Generally electronic bills should be paid within 14 days, whereas paper bills can have a 30 to 90 day payment period.
Physical therapy billing is a part of the requirements for any practice and needs to be carried out efficiently to ensure the success of a practice. However there are a variety of tools to help with this and whether using internal billing software or contracting the work out, an effective system can be set up to ensure that bills are issued and payments received on a timely basis.