The recent Payercast episode featuring Bryon Williams, a leading expert in price transparency, offered an inspiring look at how medical practices can thrive in the current healthcare landscape. Bryon, drawing on his extensive experience as a practice manager for 18 years and now as a consultant, shared a wealth of positive insights into leveraging price transparency for the benefit of medical practices.
This isn't just about compliance; it's about unlocking new pathways to growth and stability.
Throughout the conversation, Bryon highlighted ways he's worked with customers in leveraging price transparency data to help transform practices.
Tangible Benefits for Medical Practices
Strategic Growth Opportunities
Price transparency isn't just about contracts; it's a powerful tool for strategic expansion and service development. Practices can now make informed decisions about adding new services (like in-house radiology) or entering new markets by understanding potential reimbursement rates, leading to sustainable growth. This allows for "what if" analyses to determine affordability and potential reimbursement.
Stronger Physician Recruitment:
Practices with a clear understanding of their competitive reimbursement rates can use this information to attract top talent. Highlighting financial stability and potential earning power creates a positive draw for prospective physicians.
Reinforcing Independence
In a consolidating healthcare market, price transparency offers a vital pathway for independent practices to not only survive but flourish. By optimizing revenue and operational efficiency, they can maintain control over patient care and their futures. Bryon's success story of helping a practice reconsider a merger after his firm helped them improve their financial standing through revenue cycle and contract adjustments is a testament to this power.
Enhanced Negotiation Power
Price transparency equips practices with the data needed for more informed and effective contract negotiations with payers. Even if they don't immediately achieve the rates of larger competitors, the data opens the door to discussions about how to improve their standing and potentially increase future reimbursements. They can ask payers what they need to do to get to the level of higher-paying competitors.
Uncovering Hidden Revenue
The opportunity to identify and rectify underpaid services should be appealing to every practice. By comparing the allowed amount from payers with the charge amount of the practice, practices can uncover discrepancies and update their fee schedules, leading to immediate and substantial revenue increases. Bryon noted instances where clients were under-billing based on outdated fee schedules. This proactive approach ensures they are being compensated fairly for the services they provide.
Embrace the Opportunity
Greater transparency will ultimately lead to improved patient care by fostering a clearer understanding of healthcare costs and reimbursements. By embracing this data, working with experts, and advocating for continued improvements in its accessibility and standardization, practices can unlock their full potential, achieve greater financial stability, and continue their focus on delivering exceptional patient care. The "golden ticket" is here; it's time for medical practices to use it to their advantage and build a stronger, more independent future.