Outsource Cardiology billing to sail through Reimbursement Cuts and Rising Expenses

Significant cuts in reimbursement and rising costs of healthcare provision have posed grave challenges for cardiology practices across the US. Two proposed rules addressing Medicare payment and quality provisions for physicians and hospital outpatient services in 2014 released by CMS will have important ramifications on cardiology professionals. These rules have indicated more than 22% decrease for physicians in 2014 due to SGR.

Besides the cuts in reimbursement associated with SGR, it is being estimated by CMS that physician rule will increase payment by 2% between 2013 and 2014 for cardiologists. Whether or not your practice will come in this category will depend on the mix of services you will be offering.

Cardiologists seeking hospital jobs due to rising costs:

Compared to other specialities, cardiologists are seeing more hurdles in producing high returns. Rising costs, reduced reimbursements and the ACA are posing difficulties in strengthening cash flow for practices. For instance, independent cardiologists are finding it difficult to compete with multi-physician practices due to lack of advanced equipment and inability to set low healthcare rates. Even shortage of cardiovascular drugs has posed trouble for practicing physicians.

• Private cardiology practices are facing difficulties in running their business due to the increasing disparity in payment for identical services that have been performed at different venues. The economic stress caused with this disparity is driving cardiologists towards hospitals jobs
• Even general operating costs are increasing and in order to stay afloat they are reducing their general budget
• It was also stated in a study that cardiology practices face the highest risk of getting sued. Every year, approximately 20% cardiothoracic surgeons face malpractice claims. In order to prevent such cases, cardiologists have to implement expensive measures for dealing with liability issues and this has increased operating costs further

How can cardiologists overcome these challenges?

• Cardiologists will have to find affordable ways for streamlining practice management
• They will have to take strict measures for prevention of malpractice lawsuits
• Implementation of healthcare reforms and its effects on cardiology practices will have to be closely monitored by providers to know how the changes will affect their patients and ability to run their practice
• Time and money will have to be spent by cardiology practices to get prepared for cardiology billing complexities, ICD-10 and influx of patients in coming years

Amidst payment changes and rising costs, cardiologists have become vulnerable to revenue loss which is affecting the financial health of their practice. To sail through these challenges and stay in business, they are outsourcing cardiology billing requirements to a third party.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com for more than 10 years now; has been helping cardiology practices across 50 states in the US streamline their cardiology billing requirements. We have the largest consortium of certified billers and coders who make use of latest technology to maximize reimbursement and minimize claim denials for your cardiology practice. Our aim is to get you paid on time for all the services so that you can concentrate on the provision of qualitative healthcare.

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Published By - Medical Billers and Coders
Published Date - Apr-01-2014 Back