ICD-10

READY! SET! GO?

By: B. P. Fulmer; Managing Partner, Exchange EDI

Good News, delay of this cash flow crisisgave us another year to put you financial house in order. Bad News,regardless of this delay, the result willbe the same. Payers will not be fully prepared. There will be adjudication rules and edits that will not be properly communicated. It’s not a conspiracy. It is a fact of life due to the complexity of changes that will have to be made in the payer claims processing systems. This means your cash flow will be interrupted.

For practices, making operational and clinical workflow changes,re-allocation of resources (human and capital), cross-walk coding changes, billing and denial management process changesprobably won’tbe enough. Much, but not all, of the cash flow issue will be out of your control.

THE DOUBLE WHAMMY!!!

  1. Because each payer will have its’ own proprietary payment rules for ICD-10 claims, and they will likely differ from ICD-9 rules, the result will be some potentially significant denial, rejection and payment error rates. Learning new payment rules for each payer will take time, and will be a process of “Trial and Error” because payers typically do not publish all these rules.
  1. Ninety days after October 1, 2015 implementation deadlinedatedeductibles will reset, compounding an already crippling blow to cash flow. Together the cumulative effect could result in a 50% or more reduction in normal cash flow through the first quarter of 2016 and possibly beyond..

Unfortunately, even if you have done everything right, but your payers struggle to pay claims promptly and correctly, you still have a good chance of becoming a statistic if you don’t have control of you cash flow resources.

At this point the most important action you can take is to start “Pro-actively” managing cash flow! CASH FLOW is KING andit is the only fuel,on which, every businessmustrun.

Ask yourself: “What are my sources of cash and how much do I need?”

Cash Sources:

  • Payer payments
  • Patient payments
  • Aged patient accounts receivable clean-up
  • Cash reserves in the bank (As of 10/1/2015)
  • Bank operating Lines of credit

How Much Do I Need?

  • Four months of working capital

(The most conservative definition of needed working capital is: “How much cash is needed to pay all operating expenses and payrolls for four months. Assumecash receipts from payersbeginning November 2015 through April 2016 will be reduced50%. Do the math!!)

The operative assumption is this ICD-10 Tsunami will adverselyaffect the flow of payments from your payers. If you remember the effects of the conversion toHIPAA X-12 transaction formats in 2003 and more recently the conversion to 5010 you understand the risk. ICD-10 could be much worse.

What You Do and Don’t Have:

  • You have no control whether or not your payers will have their act together.
  • You do have more controlover setting up credit lines
  • You have precious little time to buildcash reserves
  • You can implement proactive patient responsibility cash flow management practices. Get professional help. Patients really don’t mind paying for services. They pay at the time of service everywhere else, why not you. (Accelerate, Accelerate, Accelerate!!!)

What’s the Solution?

The reality is there is no single solution that fits the requirements of all practices. But here are some actions every practice can take to mitigate the inevitable ICD-10 cash flow risk:

  1. Determine how much cash you need to operate your practice for four (4) months.
  2. Assume only fifty per cent (50%) of the normal cash flow from your payers for four months.
  3. Estimate the cash reserves you expect to have on hand by October 1, 2015. You should have about four months of operating capital
  4. Thirty per cent (30%) or more of your cash flow now comes directly from your patients.Implement internal policies to collect co-pay, deductibles and co-insurance at or before the time of service. Strictly enforce these policies. That includes your staff as well. NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
  5. Clean-up your patient aged accounts receivable and keep it clean.
  6. Begin aging accounts receivable from the date-of-service, not the date of the first statement. When you look at days in A/R, separate payer and patient receivables. Payer A/R should average less than thirty (30) days from the date-of-service. Patient receivables should average less than forty (40) days from the date-of-service. Sounds impossible? It’s not! It is good business.

Three Simple Actions:

Develop a cash flow management plan.

Implement it.

WORK IT. NO EXCEPTIONS!