Top 3 Ways to Increase Revenue in your Behavioral Health Practice

Increasingly, practices face pressure to increase and optimize revenue. However, some practices have a great landscape that allows them to maximize their efforts to improve their reimbursements and enhance their efforts to provide better patient care.   

Behavioral Health practices have a great opportunity to grow in the upcoming years. According to a Market Research Report by Fortune Business Insights, the U.S. behavioral health market size is expecting strong growth of $99.40 billion by 2028.   

The 2022 State of Mental Health in America states that over half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 27 million adults in the U.S. who are going untreated. People in need of mental health services are growing at a remarkable rate. This sets an opportunity for Behavioral Health practices to offer their services to patients who need them while maximizing their revenue efforts.   

Here are three ways you can increase revenue in your Behavioral Health practice:  

1. Take advantage of other care delivery systems besides in-person patient visits 

In-person patient visits are the primary way that physicians see their patients. However, there are other modalities that practices can implement to attend patients and cater to their needs, such as:  

Telehealth   

According to a U.S Health & Human Services study, Telebehavioral health may be one of the more successful technologies across the spectrum of clinical services, as outcomes and patient acceptance for Telebehavioral health are comparable to in-person visits. Telehealth allows you to define the right approach to prioritize appointments, maximize your efforts, and care for more patients.  

It also enables medical professionals to spend more time focusing on their patients in a higher capacity while alleviating some of the burden and time management on the patient side. Read more about how you can optimize your telemedicine appointments on our blog. 

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) 

Also, Behavioral Practices implementing Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) can help them improve patient outcomes, monitor patients continuously, and add a new revenue source. 

According to a Goldman Sachs report, RPM is estimated to have the potential to save the healthcare industry $200 billion a year. This type of care delivery allows the transition from episodic care to preventative care. 

With RPM, your Behavioral Health practice can detect vital sign changes signaling early mental health episodes or medication interactions and side effects. Read more about it on the blog Implement RPM with Behavioral Health Patients to Improve Patient Care & Add a New Revenue Source  

2. Attract more of your behavioral health target clients 

Currently, there is more demand for Behavioral Health services than supply. The challenge is getting the proper demand (patients) to your practice. Practices must have an effective plan to attract patients who match the type and quality of care provided. 

Some tips you can follow to achieve this are:  

• Clearly define which patients are your target. Outreach your efforts to those patients. 
• Use technology to attract the right clients and reinforce your value with existing clients.  
• Update your website with valuable content and information. Also, invest in marketing efforts to reach more potential clients. 
• Make sure your clients, potential clients, and families feel valued so they will want to return to your practice.

3. Fix billing and RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) infrastructure

Changes in reimbursement affect patients´ ability to seek treatment and providers´ ability to provide services. Billing claims are increasingly complex, which can easily drive-up denials and rejected claims. An important initiative is eliminating insufficient insurance payments and establishing a system to maintain consistent income.  

As an initial step, practices must ensure clean claims are filed when first submitted. The claim needs to include all necessary information upon receipt. Secondly, claims that are denied must be followed up quickly. If there´s a pattern of denials, it often pays to schedule a call or meeting with the payer to review them. 

A focus on clean claims and rapid response to denials will also lead to more efficient billing processes, therefore, better cash flow and faster reimbursement return. Fixing these billing errors can help you reduce denials and get paid for your work. 

To learn more about how you can increase revenue in your Behavioral Health practice, get in touch with an AdvantEdge expert, or stay up to date on company and industry trends by visiting our Linkedin page.