Practice Management Alert

Question: Our payer contracts state that I have seven personnel in charge of posting payments and making adjustments. Recently, I have found errors in our adjustments. Should all personnel be able to perform adjustments, or only designated staff?

New York Subscriber  
Answer: It depends on the ability and quality of your staff. Practices often promote receptionists who lack proper qualifications to perform posting and adjustments. They are promoted because its less time-consuming to promote than to recruit qualified candidates. You should have the highest-quality employees to ensure your practice is billing correctly. Some areas may have difficulty recruiting acceptable candidates. In that case, a good training program has to be part of the hiring or promotion process.