What is Medical Billing?
Healthcare providers often dedicate time, money, and resources for providing patients with the highest quality care. Receiving appropriate compensation for this work is a necessity for hospitals and other healthcare services to have enough capital to run their operations smoothly.
The lengthy process of managing accounts, billing, administrative work, and medical codes can become a great burden for hospital administration and staff. Hiring medical billers has proved time and time again to be the most effective strategy in today’s rapidly growing healthcare industry.
Healthcare providers often face a delay in receiving payments from insurance companies such as Medicaid, Medicare, and other insurance providers due to flaws in coding or filling forms. In an industry where $125 billion remains uncollected each year due to faulty claims, hiring medical billers can help take off the burden from hospital staff and administration. Neglecting the importance of outsourcing the critical billing procedures can be damaging, not only to the revenue management cycle of your practice but also to its reputation and the quality of service it provides to patients.
Continue reading to find out how hiring medical billers can benefit you immensely and run your practice as efficiently as possible.
1.Lower Labor Costs
Hiring in-house medical billers to work directly for the healthcare facility comes with several costs. Facilitating the process of hiring medical billers, paying salaries, providing benefits, additional training, etc., represent a high cost of doing business for healthcare providers and hospitals, also consuming much of their time before effective systems are put into place. According to a survey undertaken by The Commonwealth Fund, administrative costs per physician amount to $83,000 per annum, four times the amount incurred by a Canadian physicians.
Hiring a medical service provider and outsourcing this responsibility allows experts in medical billing to take over and shift the responsibility to those who have the necessary training, command, expertise and experience in this field. Medical billing companies will be responsible for incurring the costs of hiring, training, and paying the medical billers. Ultimately, this will reduce the number of claims being denied and promote greater reimbursement.
2. Increased Data Security
Patient data is constantly under threat as hackers and other cyber-criminals attempt to hack into and steal valuable patient data that can be used by insurance companies and other financial institutions. This information is very sensitive as it contains patient information, family information, addresses, patient history, diagnostic results, medication, and other important personal details.
Medical billing companies have often taken advanced measures and precautions to prevent this via the most up-to-date digital security software to protect sensitive patient data. This is done as billing companies follow HIPAA security rules and conduct risk assessments and risk management of all systems. Breaching Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1966 1996 (HIPAA) regulations can result in major fines and charges which can be detrimental for startups and independent medical practices.
Data security can also be enhanced with the use of innovative technology in the healthcare industry. For example, electronic health records (EHR) permit the practitioners to send, use, and monitor private and sensitive data most securely.
3. Decreased Logistics Costs
In-house medical billing staff requires their own office space, software, computers, and dedicated time from the HR department, all of which come with a substantial monetary price tag. Advance medical billing software requires experts to run and integrate it with currently existing systems in the hospital.
Hiring a third-party medical billing company shifts this responsibility and relieves the medical practitioner from this burden. Medical billers operate in their own offices, within their separate companies, and will use their own software. With a third-party medical billing vendor, the leftover space and business resources can be dedicated to therapeutic, diagnostic, pharmaceutical, and surgical facilities. Staff can also be hired or allocated to different areas of the practice where they may be of greater help and more productive.
4. Greater Revenue for Practitioners
Healthcare practitioners often bear substantial losses in revenues annually due to denied insurance claims. According to AARP, 1 in 7 claims is denied, resulting in over 200 million denials per day. This occurs due to a broad spectrum of reasons. A few examples include incorrect medical coding, claim form errors caused by inaccurate information, missed deadlines, and insurance coverage issues. It is said that nearly 30% of all insurance claims are either ignored or denied.
In-house administration costs alongside errors in form submission that can result in long delays with insurance claims are also greatly reduced. An expert medical billing company increases the net revenue collection and corrects any deficiencies within the preexisting revenue cycle.
A greater revenue stream will allow the medical practice to grow and expand into other fields of medicine, improve patient care, or provide increased benefits to staff, to name a few advantages of outsourcing. Additionally, medical billing organizations can help identify areas of strength and weakness within your payments and collections system.
5. Streamlines Daily Billing Operations
Medical codes and insurance policies are ever-changing, and only someone deeply familiar with them can follow and apply them adequately. A coding specialist is well-versed and experienced in medical billing, coding, and the workings of the Affordable Healthcare Act, Medicaid, and Medicare.
Expert medical coders and billers can effectively identify compliance issues to limit insurance denials and allow the medical practice to receive greater cash flows and maximize revenues. Reclaiming rejected insurance claims will now be the responsibility of the hired medical biller, thus, reducing your stress and allowing you to dedicate more time to improving patient care or expanding your medical practice.
Maintaining and upgrading software solutions can take a large amount of capital and may also take up a lot of time. Outsourcing this responsibility of constantly updating and adopting newer software can be immensely beneficial in cost savings.
6. Greater Accountability and Reporting
Almost every medical biller relies on smart software that streamlines and automates the entire process of the revenue management cycle. This allows the greatest level of accuracy and prevents human error from interfering with the financial performance of your practice.
Hiring medical billers relieves the healthcare facility of most of the capital expenditures associated with acquiring and operating new software. Moreover, medical billing companies are fully compliant with HIPAA and follow all regulatory standards. A reputable medical billing company will also assist your practice in staying up-to-date with market trends, state laws and regulations, and codes.
7. Greater Financial Transparency and Analysis
Transparency in medical billing is a challenge. Healthcare professionals and hospital staff can help strengthen the patient experience greatly by streamlining the critical processes involved in billing and payments.
By hiring a professional medical billing company, a medical practice can easily reduce costs and delays. By automating and restructuring your billing operations, a medical billing vendor will be able to accelerate cash flows and improve operating margins. The subsequent operational transparency and financial efficiency will help you enhance the patient experience in turn, thus, enabling business success.
8. Reduced Errors in Billing
Hiring a medical biller will help you reduce potential errors in form submission and insurance claims. Almost four in five medical bills contain mistakes of some kind or the other, undermining your ability to receive timely reimbursement for services rendered from insurance providers.
A research study undertaken by NerdWallet reveals that nearly 49% of all Medicare claims contain errors. Other errors that practitioners should be cautious of include incorrect procedure codes, mishandled underpayments, missing information, and upcoding.
Hiring a medical billing company will help you prepare and dispatch error-free documentation and process insurance claims quickly. Relying on their billing experts means cutting down on coding and billing mistakes, better office management and compliance, and more savings per patient. Outsourced billers will help you save time in many ways, which you can then utilize more productively in enhancing your clinical practice.
See Also: The Importance Of Provider Credentials In Medical Billing
Conclusion
Medical billing is a complex field that is prone to errors and mismanagement. As the costs of managing medical billing processes in-house increase, so do the pressures of keeping up with multiplying rules and regulations in the healthcare industry.
Hiring medical billers can transfer this burden of administrative and financial duties from the medical professionals to those who are qualified and better able to handle them. If you are struggling with medical billing and need a reliable partner for assistance, Precision Hub provides the latest and most innovative tech-optimized medical billing solutions.
Let the experts take care of your outstanding claims and medical bills, while you focus on patient care! Hire a medical biller and let us handle all your billing, coding, bookkeeping, financial reporting and analysis.