If your growing practice is unable to offer quality patient care while processing medical billing, it is time to outsource medical billing. Read this blog post to understand if your hospital/practice needs to outsource.
Managing a healthcare practice is similar to running a business, as you have to handle an endless list of administrative tasks, apart from providing quality healthcare services to your patients. Tasks like medical billing can consume all of your spare time and drain you of energy. On the other hand, it is extremely important to get your medical billing coded correctly and in a timely manner, without which your hospital/practice could get into financial trouble. The way out of this dilemma is to outsource medical billing to a third-party expert.
Are constant errors in medical billing stopping you from getting paid on time? What you need to do is to rethink your medical billing strategy. Read about four easy ways you can use to avoid medical billing mistakes.
What does the denial rate of your hospital look like? If the claims denial rate of your practice is higher than 4% (considered an efficient benchmark by the MGMA), you may want to stop blaming payers for medical billing mishaps and start rethinking your medical billing strategy. Here are four steps you can take to immediately prevent the medical billing mistakes happening at your practice.
Ensure that insurance is always verified
The number one reason that most medical billing claims get denied is unverified insurance. Not ensuring that insurance is verified can cost you more in terms of money and time. This is why, your staff and you must be extremely careful that insurance is verified for both new as well as returning patients. Keep in touch with the insurance provider to check for the coverage periods, pre-existing condition exclusions, effective dates, copayments and deductibles. Try to avoid errors when a patient’s benefits or receiving services are not met by the plan’s benefits.
Do you want to get paid on time, without delays? Here are four useful tips that you can use to speed up the payment of your medical claims.
The procedure of submitting claims and getting paid has always been filled with errors. To contest this, payers now use electronic submission and some kind of billing software as well. However, even with these steps, practices are still struggling to get paid on time. Though some problems lie with the payer, there are best practices that you can use to get paid faster.
Here are four tips that you can use to speed up your medical billing process. By implementing a few or all of these suggestions, you can get your practice’s medical claims submitted on time and paid at a much faster pace.
Make it your goal to get your claims submitted within three days or less from the time of the service. You can then track the claims through payment. If everything is in order, you can receive your claims within 40 days or less and enjoy a net collection of 95%.
Outsourced medical billing is a great way to deal with problems of increased regulation, low operational efficiency, reduced carrier allowances and red tape.
Making a decision on whether to outsource medical billing or not can be a difficult one. Over the years, the complicated field of medical billing has always required specialized skills. Referring to a specialized medical billing company makes a lot of sense if you are new start-up, an experienced company or even if you are in the middle of adapting to a new system.
Here are five benefits that your medical practice can leverage by outsourcing medical billing services.
1. Higher economies of scale
Since a medical billing service provider can operate at a much lower cost, those savings will be passed on to you. Medical billing companies in India can afford to hire the best professionals, thereby giving you quality services for a lesser price. Apart from leveraging higher returns and lower costs, you can also save more in terms of stress, time and infrastructure.
2. Dedicated team of specialists
An outsourced medical billing team has only one purpose and that is to double the profitability of your medical practice. Payments are carefully reviewed and posted, to avoid inaccurate adjustments. Outstanding claims are tracked and processed. The team would work closely with your resources to ensure that you benefit from an efficient workflow. Only outsourcing can put you in touch with such a dedicated group of medical billing specialists.
3. Gain better control
Outsourcing can put your company more in control of medical billing. Since an external provider will be taking care of your tedious medical billing process, you will have more time to review monthly reports and assess the health of your medical practice. You can make monthly/annual comparisons and identify issues regarding payer reimbursements or charge entry. Better transparency will also give you an added sense of control. Continue reading →
