Family Practice

Family practice is a large and growing segment of healthcare that sees more than 200 million patients every year in the United States alone. The recent pandemic kept family practices busy daily, with patients looking for teleconsultation and in-house consultation for various symptoms and health issues.

Did you know that family practice is the number one type of practice listed based on the scope of ICD codes used? Family medicine practitioners deal with a variety of ailments in people across age groups. It is not uncommon for the same practice to provide both infant care and geriatric care at the same place.

Family practice also experiences the largest number of preventive care visits. They may also have to offer quick services to patients, like consultation and treatment on the same day, pepping for surgeries in a short span of time, and recommending screening tests and consulting based on results so these individuals can remain outpatients and still feel better at the end of the day.

For a practice that needs to offer a wide range of precise medical care services quickly, a good backend team to support them is absolutely necessary. Family practitioners are usually busy over the year and may need extended hours to handle new and existing patient needs. It is the responsibility of the billers to make sure they are compensated for their efforts.

Family practice coding can be quite challenging, merely due to a large number of ICD codes and modifiers that need to be used. The smallest errors or confusion can lead to claims quickly denied by the payers. Family practices, especially the smaller ones, depend on timely payment to handle monthly expenses, and delayed AR cycles can disrupt the practice’s financial stability.