Survey: Half of Physical Therapists Underbill For Their Services
More than 750 Outpatient Rehabilitation Providers Participate in Clinicient Survey; Results Reveal that 47 Percent Underreport Therapists' Time
PORTLAND, Ore., May 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Clinicient Inc, a leader in outpatient rehabilitation business solutions, today announced the results of an industry survey of how efficiently outpatient rehabilitation practices perform day-to-day activities. 759 therapists, practice owners and administrative staff completed the brand-neutral survey and confirmed a widespread industry need for technology and services that improve therapist efficiency.
In response to the survey findings, Clinicient published a free 12-page guide to help physical therapy practices improve the efficiency of their staff, entitled "Six Ways to Have More Time for Patient Care." It is part of the popular Clinicient "Playbooks" series and is available at http://www.clinicient.com/playbooks/playbooks
Therapist efficiency is an often misunderstood, and sometimes delicate, subject. At its core, it's about caring for patients while also managing non-billable tasks that waste time, take therapists away from patients, and prevent them from getting paid every dollar rightfully earned. For example, 10 or 15 percent of therapists' time unintentionally goes unbilled because of complicated approaches to documentation and payment. And getting paid is not the only thing that suffers because of low efficiency. Practices whose therapists spend too much time on non-billable administrative tasks also report higher levels of patient dropout.
The ongoing web-based survey of the industry at-large launched in February and featured seven questions that gauged efficiency. Respondents were not paid for their time or prescreened to ensure the validity of the results.
Results of Industry Survey of Therapist Efficiency:
| Is all patient registration, scheduling, documentation and billing information captured in one system? |
33% said no |
| Do you have a system to proactively manage patient cases by detecting attendance or early dropout issues? |
49% said no |
| Do you have a system that tracks and automatically codes therapist's billable time? |
47% said no |
| Do you use templates and goal tracking tools to make it fast and easy to document care and demonstrate progress? |
38% said no |
| Do you use system-driven alerts, prompts and controls to simplify and enforce Medicare compliance? |
40% said no |
| Do you have a way to track all therapist's available time and the percentage that was billed? |
47% said no |
| Do you use home exercise programs? |
7% said no |
"Every therapist's nemesis is doing their notes. Whether paper or electronic, it's a major administrative burden for them," said Dean Hasse, PT, ANMT, president & owner at Cherry Creek Wellness Center, in the Greater Denver area. "By using Clinicient, we have streamlined the note-taking process. Information flows forward from previous notes so the therapists keep it at their fingertips. They're able to add information, and change it for their next note, depending on how the patient presents. That's made things more efficient."
About Clinicient
Clinicient helps outpatient rehabilitation therapy businesses manage change with a combination of cloud-based EMR, practice management, and revenue cycle management solutions that optimize the entire care cycle from patient to payment. With nearly $1 billion in payments under management, Clinicient's solution maximizes payment while enabling therapists to deliver superior clinical outcomes that enhance the value of therapy to patient population health management. Clinicient is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. For more information call (855) 900-9227 or visit http://www.clinicient.com or follow Twitter @Clinicient.
SOURCE Clinicient Inc.
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