Key metrics to monitor on a daily, weekly & monthly basis for effective debt recovery.
Some metrics in this article are only available to our Best Practice software integration customers.
Debt recovery is a crucial aspect of general practice, playing a significant role in sustaining the financial health and stability of the practice.
For General Practice, timely and effective debt recovery ensures the continuity of operations, allowing you to maintain the quality of services provided to your patients. Unpaid debts can significantly impact the cash flow of a practice, hindering its ability to invest in necessary equipment, attract qualified staff, and upgrade facilities. Moreover, successful debt recovery contributes to the overall viability of the healthcare system by preventing the accumulation of bad debts that could otherwise result in increased service costs for all patients.
By prioritising debt recovery, practices can allocate resources more efficiently, maintain a sustainable practice, and ultimately enhance their capacity to deliver optimal healthcare services to the community
The sections included in this article are:
- Daily Workflow
- Weekly Workflow
- Monthly Workflow
Daily workflow
Outstanding rejections
Review this metric daily to ensure all of the Medicare and DVA rejections are followed up promptly.
This metric can be found in Clinic Insights > Today's clinic metrics > Outstanding rejections.
This figure shows the number of outstanding Medicare and DVA rejections that require follow-up. Click through see a detailed list of these invoices and services.
Clicking through on this tile will show a detailed list of rejected online claims. These are all claims that the Practitioners have requested to bill directly to Medicare or DVA (i.e. bulk bill), have been sent to Medicare or DVA, have been rejected by Medicare or DVA and now require review.
TOP TIP! You can download the list by clicking the download button 
on the top right-hand corner of the table to then use this list to review and resend the claims to Medicare or DVA (as needed).
For additional information on Medicare and DVA rejections and rejection codes go to Services Australia.
Unbilled appointments
This metric provides a great way to locate any missed billing opportunities, the cause of which could range from Reception staff accidentally not billing them, or the doctor not putting a billing through at the end of the consult or day.
An unbilled appointment is an appointment that has been marked as completed in your practice appointment book, but there is no invoice created for the date of service.
To navigate to this metric go to Clinic Optimisation > Billing Optimisation > Unbilled appointments.
Use the "List of unbilled appointments" to action. This table shows the details of unbilled appointments that took place during the selected time period. Once an invoice has been created that includes services with a service date that matches the appointment date, that appointment will disappear from this list.
Understanding how your practice runs will help you to navigate these metrics. For example, you may not bill for certain items such as an appointment type ‘ROS’ when part of normal aftercare. In these cases, it’s best to use the above tip and to manage this list by reviewing at specific time frames so you do not have to check recurring unbilled appointments you have already dealt with. In addition, you may want to remove specific appointment types from this list using the 'Select appt type' filter.
TOP TIP! Once you have your filtered list of unbilled appointments, you can export the list to Excel using the download arrow on the table and then work through the list of unbilled appointments, billing where appropriate.
TOP TIP! Create a 'No-Fee' or 'Aftercare' custom item to apply to appointments that do not warrant a billing, such as normal aftercare. Then you can track this custom item in Past Clinic Metrics > Total Billings (by service date) to see how many services are occuring during a timeframe.
Weekly Workflow
Uncompleted appointments
The uncompleted patient appointments metric provides two lists of appointments where the appointment status is not yet marked as completed.
The Uncompleted patient appointments metric can be found within the Clinic Optimisation > Billing Optimisation cabinet.
An uncompleted appointment may indicate that there is a missed billing opportunity so using this metric as part of your weekly administrative checks is a great way to maximise billings generated from the work your practitioners are undertaking.
From a review perspective, you could use this metric for your administrative support team KPI's. Set them the target of zero uncompleted appointments, or have them communicate any uncompleted appointments to you, as it could be practitioner-related as to why it couldn't be billed.
TOP TIP! Use the filters to only show those appointments with a certain appointment status e.g. at billing to assist with prioritising which appointments to action first.
Unbatched invoices
This metric shows the number of eligible invoices that have not yet been batched to Medicare or DVA. To action these invoices: create a new batch through your practice management software.
This metric can be found in Clinic Insights > Today's clinic metrics > Unbatched invoices
When you click on the metric tile, the metric presents a detailed list of unbatched invoices. These are all invoices that the practitioners have requested to bill directly to Medicare or DVA (i.e. bulk bill)
NOTE: This figure will identify any outstanding invoices that have not been sent to Medicare or DVA for payment and therefore revenue (billings) not yet paid.
This metric is updated daily overnight, so anything that has been batched after these times will still show in the list until the next data update.
TOP TIP: You can download the list by clicking the 
on the top right-hand corner of the list and then provide this list to your reception team to process/batch the billing in your practice management software.
Historical opportunities
Reviewing your historical opportunities offers a chance to identify invoices that may be eligible for specific item numbers but have not been billed. This proactive approach allows you to reclaim potentially missed items and optimises your billing strategy.
The historical metrics can be found in Clinic Optimisation > Billing Optimisation >Historical
Review this for:
- Historical 10997 opportunities
- Historical 10987 opportunities
- Historical 93666 opportunities
- Historical MT83-MT89 opportunities
- Historical flu vaccine opportunities
- Unbilled COVID-19 vax appointments
Monthly Workflow
Outstanding debt
This metric can help identify unpaid accounts to increase cash flow, and reduce the risk of bad debt.
Cash is key to the continued operation of the practice, so these metrics can be used to review and create lists for your team to chase up.
Keeping debtors low not only helps with the cash flow, but it will also help show your Service Fee-paying Practitioners that you and the practice are working on minimising what is owed by patients or other account holders.
To navigate to this cabinet, go to Clinic Insights > Today's clinic metrics > Outstanding debt.
Use the filters on the page to filter the debtor list by Payer. Selecting Patient Account will show you a list of all outstanding patient accounts to be followed up. Then you can sort the list under the column Next appt date to view patients with upcoming appointments and outstanding debt first. This gives your team the opportunity to flag this with the patient prior to attending their appointment OR flag it on the appointment so all accounts are finalised on the day to reduce debtors and follow-up tasks.
Here you can also see who the next appt was made by and the date it was booked. This can be used as an internal measure to ensure your patients are being advised of any outstanding accounts prior to booking this next appointment if the patient already had an outstanding account when this appointment was being made.