Your front-office team may never submit a medical claim. They still have an enormous influence on whether that claim gets paid appropriately. Before a physician sees the patient, the practice has already collected information, verified – or failed to verify – coverage, identified – or missed – authorization requirements, communicated financial responsibility and created the data that will eventually travel through the revenue cycle.

A medical practice can be busy, productive and seemingly financially healthy – and still be losing revenue every day. Often, the problem isn’t one dramatic breakdown. It’s a series of smaller gaps across the revenue cycle: an insurance verification that wasn’t completed correctly, an authorization issue, a charge that wasn’t captured, a coding problem that delayed a claim, a denial that wasn’t resolved or an outstanding balance that quietly moved further into aging accounts r

Opening an independent medical practice can give physicians greater control over how they practice medicine, how patients experience their care and how the business itself operates. It also introduces an entirely different set of responsibilities.