Your physicians are working harder than ever. They deserve a dependable revenue cycle that works relentlessly to ensure every cent due the medical practice is collected timely, efficiently, and accurately! Authors Deborah Walker Keegan, Elizabeth W. Woodcock, and Sara M. Larch have followed up their best-selling first edition with a book that shares more offensive strategies to optimize your revenue cycle. The text is packed full of new, innovative tools, techniques, policies and procedures, and advanced practices that allow you to diagnose and treat your revenue cycle and ensure a financially healthy bottom line. The depth and magnitude of change in health care reimbursement means that your medical practice cannot rely on the same old billing methods. Anything less than optimal performance from your billing office reduces cash flow and costs you money. The authors present cutting edge strategies to meet today s reimbursement challenges and improve the profitability of your medical practice. The authors lay out real life business practices that can be adopted tomorrow in your medical practice, including how to: Decipher consumer-directed health plans; Conduct patient financial clearance; Segment patients in terms of financial risk; Staff to effectively conduct front-end and back-end billing; Capture increased revenue at the point of care; Understand real-time claims adjudication; Shrink your collections cycle; Position your practice for pay-for-performance; Work and prevent costly claim denials and rework; Code appropriately to ensure your fair share of differential payer reimbursement; Leverage multiple technologies; and Perform a cost/benefit analysis of your revenue cycle. Move forward on the road to getting paid!