Whether to outsource your medical billing or to do it in-house is a difficult decision many practitioners face. However, it should be as easy as performing your own surgery. Medical billing requires a high set of skills, and in recent years we have seen a steep increase in complexity. Due to the high deductible plans, patients are facing bigger and bigger medical billing but may lack the means when the bill comes due. This indicates to the medical practitioners that improving your medical billing should be your top priority for 2017. For so many reasons, outsourcing your medical billing and coding has become a necessity. Profit margins are shrinking with reduced carrier allowances. Once you realize that your medical billing is taking a hit, you cannot afford to lose more revenue due to the changing ICD-10 norms and larger co-pays. This is true for small practices with a limited budget. An end-to-end medical billing company can handle practices revenue and claims efficiently with all the insurance carriers.
Let’s cover the 5 most important things offered by a medical company to help improve your revenue:
Dedicated and Highly Experienced Staff
The team at your medical billing company has only one objective; to increase the profitability of your practice. They post and review all the claims to ensure that all the payments are done correctly and avoid incorrect adjustments. They can even be integrated with your office staff to meet certain goals. The dedicated team not only helps you save time but also ensures you give enough time to your patients which actually are your practices in real need.
Keeping Data Secured
The medical billing company is committed to keeping your patient health information (PHI) secure from thefts and frauds. This indeed will be a big “NO” if your billing company does not consider this as a high priority or cannot ensure a high level of security.
Not only this, even if your company is promising to keep your PHI secured, you have every right to know how they are doing it. Talking to your billing company about how they are storing your system password, the details of the processes, etc. will help you properly understand the level of security they offer.
Business Intelligence to Identify Areas of Improvement
Having immediate access to the data you require helps to make better decisions and delivers control over your financial and clinical data. Accurate data mining is one of the best ways for medical billing agencies to improve their level of service and collection. With these innovations in medical billing, it’s become easier to generate unique reports which assist in decision making and implementation.
Constantly Improve Services and Technology
The billing company will always keep you informed about new services and codes your practice can use. If it does not have an experienced billing staff to help physicians to improve its documentation process, it is recommended that you consider evaluating other options. Choosing your medical billing company should involve thorough research based on your specific needs and requirements. The above criteria are just a few things you should consider while choosing your billing company.
Deliver Detailed and Useful Reports
Measuring and analyzing your monthly performance report is crucial for the success of your practice. The reports tell you which areas are doing well and which areas need improvement, either on your end or by your billing service team. By reviewing your past performance data and patterns, you can set realistic expectations and goals for the future.
If your billing company isn’t providing monthly reports and analysis, you should better search for a new company that allows you to run and access your own reports whenever you want. This way you can ensure the data is accurate and calculate metrics against your benchmarks.
Now, these are just a few good reasons why it is best to outsource your medical billing to a specialist team. If you chose to go this way, make sure you carve out more time, not just to follow up on outstanding claims, but to stay up to date on carrier rules and regulations.
