Many physicians across the US are facing trouble in medical billing and HIPAA compliance. Due to the challenges involved, they are unable to use these as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage by reviewing and improving overall business processes.
If practices fail to overcome challenges related to HIPAA and medical billing, it can result in dissatisfied patients, physicians and employees. It will also lead to disrupted cash flow and huge revenue losses in the long run.
Challenges associated with medical billing:
- If the coders and billers at your practice are not certified and well-trained, it will not only lead to claim denials and revenue loss but also add up to your practice costs, as you will be giving them salaries and employee benefits and buying technology systems for billing
- Even if one biller or coder gets sick or leaves the job, it will stall your operations and cash flow
- Due to lack of staff, billers and coders at many practices are involved in front-desk operations and other vital tasks. This creates more room for coding and billing errors as they are unable to concentrate fully on billing requirements
Difficulties in HIPAA compliance:
No matter how complex compliance requirements are, eventually, your practice will have to implement HIPAA that will apply to transactions with all payers, help regulate transmission of PHI and eliminate the chances of security breaches.
- Practices will have to update their software
- Conduct collection and data reporting in a different format
- Conduct HIPAA security risk analysis
- Train in-house staff to handle security measures
- Perform data transmission in an encrypted form
Benefits of ensuring HIPAA compliance and streamlined billing:
Streamlined medical billing not only proves effective in reducing claim denials and costs but it also plays a vital role in ensuring timely payments. Changes required to comply with HIPAA are daunting; however, if carried out in a proper manner, it can also help practices generate more revenue and enhance patient care and operational efficiencies.
Challenges involved in medical billing and HIPAA compliance are hard to meet if your practice lacks time, money and skilled resources. With payment cuts and pressure from healthcare reforms, many practices are opting for billing companies that are HIPAA compliant.
How can a billing company help eliminate the burden?
Outsourcing will offer an effective RCM process for your practice and eliminate the headache of hiring, training, re-training staff, re-testing software for HIPAA compliance and taking necessary measures to prepare for ICD-10 implementation.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com has been offering HIPAA-compliant medical billing services to practices across 50 states in the US. Our team is experienced in implementing HIPAA-5010 standards for coding and billing, without affecting cash flow. The team at MBC performs billing services without compromising on the confidentiality of patient and practice information.
While we balance the operational and clinical functions of your medical practice, you can make use of the time to concentrate on provision of quality patient care.
