The Texas Academy of Family Physicians will begin aggregating members' reimbursement data and provide real-time payer benchmarking to identify problem payers and troubling reimbursement trends before they turn into cash-flow pitfalls.
TAFP, the largest medical specialty organization in Texas, is working with RemitDATA, Inc., a Memphis, Tenn.-based provider of Web-based productivity tools and benchmarking to the outpatient healthcare market.
"Imagine the benefit of data organized so that a group of practices in a given region can see denial rates by service from a specific payer as a whole, or how quickly the respective payers are paying a claim for a specific service," said Tom Banning, the CEO for TAFP. "These aggregated metrics compared to the practices' own information accessed online is powerful and will allow TAFP to keep our members, policy makers and regulators informed in real-time about how payers are operating in different markets so we can effect positive change."
Through the use of RemitDATA's online reimbursement tool, TAFP will be able to aggregate its members' reimbursement data to help identify and resolve payer reimbursement trends statewide. The organization hopes to drive down costs associated with billing and help members accelerate revenue.
"Physicians' current practice patterns are under assault," said Michael L. Sanderson, president of RemitDATA. "Complex managed care policies, rising cost of collections and declining reimbursements foster a volatile environment for today's physician."
TAFP, with a membership of more than 5,500 physicians, residents and medical students in 33 chapters, serves the family medicine community in Texas.