3 Ways OBGYN Practices Increase Revenue During the Global Period of Care

Updated by Blakely Roth | June 20, 2024

Ensuring a healthy revenue stream is vital for the financial well-being of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OBGYN) practices, especially during the global period of care. This specific period poses unique challenges that can affect the practice’s financial stability and hinder investments in patient care. However, by implementing effective revenue-boosting strategies, OBGYN practices can navigate these challenges and achieve sustained profitability. Keep reading to learn three impactful strategies that OBGYN practices can employ during the global period to increase revenue!

1. Real-Time Insurance Verification

Real-time insurance verification offers OBGYN practices a strategic advantage in collections and reimbursement while navigating the intricacies of the global period of care. With instant insurance verification that doesn’t have limitations like added fees, practices can streamline their billing processes and get paid faster. 

One of the significant benefits of real-time insurance updates is the ability to instantly verify patients’ insurance coverage and eligibility. This can empower OBGYN practices to confirm insurance status at the point of service or when it comes time to bill after the global period of care, minimizing the risk of claim denials and ensuring accurate billing. By staying updated with the latest insurance information, practices can proactively address any discrepancies or issues, reducing billing errors, claim resubmissions and potential revenue loss.

During the global period, real-time updates become even more valuable as they enable practices to check patient insurance when it is time to bill. For example, during a woman’s pregnancy, OBGYN practices typically bill for care and the delivery after ten or eleven months. It’s certainly not uncommon for those patients to change their insurance providers at some point. As a result, when it comes time for OBGYN practices to bill those patients, without instant insurance verification, most practices may end up incurring claims rejections and billing stalls due to improper patient insurance data. With real-time insurance verification, your practice’s billing staff can verify insurance or solve any issues, prior to billing, speeding up the entire cycle and time-to-payment. 

By implementing real-time eligibility verification, practices significantly reduce claim rejections and improve revenue cycle management. As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, OBGYN practices that leverage real-time insurance updates position themselves as pioneers in optimizing revenue while delivering exceptional care to their patients.

2. Better Use of Modifiers

Modifiers play a crucial role in OBGYN billing and reimbursement, offering opportunities for practices to optimize revenue within the global period. Understanding common modifiers and implementing effective strategies can significantly impact reimbursement rates and financial outcomes for OBGYN practices. OBGYN practices can employ several strategies to enhance revenue through better use of modifiers. One effective strategy is to invest in a patient self-registration solution that automates and simplifies routine administrative processes while capturing cleaner patient data.

Using a patient self-check-in system expedites the registration process, reduces paperwork and minimizes data entry errors. A revenue-focused patient self-registration solution will enable patients to review and update their data and reduce manual data entry requirements for staff, meaning your practice will have the clean data you need to reduce claims rejections and billing errors that take up your staff’s valuable time. By reducing the number of claims rejections to process and re-submit, your OBGYN medical billing staff will gain more time to focus on complex billing claims that require modifiers. These modifiers are essential for accurately representing services performed outside of the global period of care, and capturing that earned revenue. The diligent application of appropriate modifiers ensures that OBGYN practices can bill for additional services provided to patients beyond the standard global period. With automated processes and streamlined registration workflows, practices can efficiently manage billing tasks without becoming too overburdened with unnecessary, tedious work.

Reducing staff workloads in other areas such as communications and check-in processes can also significantly benefit OBGYN billing staff, allowing them to allocate more time to focus on modifying patient claims and helping practices earn more for the work their physicians have performed. By streamlining administrative tasks and improving efficiency, practices can increase revenue captured during the global period of care. Investing in a comprehensive patient revenue platform can help implement efficient communication channels, which can further alleviate the workload on billing staff. 

Leveraging technology solutions like a comprehensive patient revenue platform can streamline billing processes and improve accuracy in coding and modifier usage, further boosting revenue potential. Learn more about how your OBGYN practice can help reduce missed modifiers.

3. Increase Scheduling of New Patients

Embracing technology-driven solutions for patient scheduling is a valuable strategy for OBGYN practices aiming to increase their patient base and revenue during the global period of care. In the dynamic healthcare landscape, prioritizing new patient scheduling not only drives revenue growth but also fosters practice growth, patient satisfaction, and loyalty. 

While increasing your patient base may be top-of-mind, it can be challenging in a specialty that already has high patient loyalty. Improve your ability to bring in new patients by making sure you have the right patient scheduling platform in place to capture interested prospective patients. 

One key advantage of a smart patient scheduling platform is the ability to offer convenient 24/7 booking that both meets patient and provider expectations. With this feature, prospective patients can easily schedule their appointments at their preferred time and from the comfort of their own homes, regardless of their office hours. 

By providing this flexibility, practices can attract a larger pool of new patients and fill available appointment slots more effectively. Offering online scheduling helps patients who are searching for a new provider online, easily book an appointment at your practice. On the flip side, if you only have a phone scheduling option prospective patients may neglect to call and instead look elsewhere. With a convenient and user-friendly online scheduling interface, you increase your chances of booking new patients.

In addition to online appointment booking, using an automated waitlist can be highly beneficial to filling all of your open appointment slots. OBGYN practices often experience high demand, leading to limited availability for new patients. By incorporating a waitlist functionality, practices can efficiently fill any last-minute openings in their schedule due to cancellations and rescheduling. 

Use a smart patient scheduling platform, complete with a waitlist to keep your schedule full. When a patient cancels an appointment or a slot becomes available at the last minute, the software can automatically notify patients on the waitlist, offering them the opportunity to fill the vacant appointment. This proactive approach helps in-demand practices bring in more patients and reduce scheduling gaps, maximizing revenue potential.

By offering convenient online appointment booking and incorporating a waitlist feature, practices can attract more new patients, fill scheduling gaps, and reduce revenue losses.

Take Actions to Help Your OBGYN Practice Increase Revenue

By incorporating real-time insurance verification, optimizing the use of modifiers and increasing new patients, OBGYN practices can unlock revenue opportunities, particularly during the global period. Go beyond traditional means of revenue capture. By leveraging digital tools and advanced technology, practices can secure revenue that would otherwise be challenging to obtain. 

Use Clearwave to increase hard-to-reach revenue streams like modifiers, while at the same time improving data capture and reducing manual tasks, all of which enable you to process cleaner claims and get paid faster. Discover the secrets to optimizing revenue in your OBGYN practice by mastering the effective use of modifiers. Learn how to avoid missed opportunities and maximize reimbursement!

Let Clearwave help your practice increase revenue during the global period of care! Schedule a demo today!