Why is Verification of Benefits Essential for Medical Practices?

medical insurance verification

Introduction

The first and most important medical billing and coding stage is determining whether a patient has insurance. As the complexity of health care increases, practices must pay greater attention to the accuracy of patients’ coverage, benefits, deductibles, and co-payments. Therefore, medical professionals must thoroughly understand the Verification of the Benefits for Medical Practices approach and its significance in healthcare.

Today’s blog post discusses the importance of verifying a patient’s insurance status during medical billing. The post highlights the benefits of medical insurance verification. Moreover, the post also presents an overview of the insurance verification process in medical billing.

Medical Insurance Verification

Physicians must have extensive knowledge of their current coverage to get payment from patients. They must verify and explain their benefits and collect payment when services are rendered. Checking a patient’s eligibility enables medical offices to submit the correct claims.

Verification of benefits is one of the procedures involved in the invoicing process for medical services. It involves contacting the patient’s insurance company to confirm their health care coverage. Medical insurance verification is required to ensure that claim reimbursement is not contaminated. Many insurance claims are denied because the policy does not cover the services. Medical personnel and healthcare organizations frequently have difficulty verifying claims because they are so occupied with patient care. As this is their best alternative, they would be wise to utilize the services of outsourcing businesses to verify their insurance coverage.

Benefit verification services provided by reliable medical billing organizations like Precision Hub can help medical service providers lessen the likelihood of not being paid or having their claims denied. It is possible to maintain an efficient billing process. Accelerating the payment and collection processes can improve a healthcare facility’s accounts receivable cycle.

Insurance Verification Process in Medical Billing

As part of the insurance verification procedure, the healthcare provider must contact the patient’s insurance company to determine the patient’s health benefits. The medical insurance verification process would occur before a patient receives medical care. Insurance providers may not pay your clinic’s claims if it is not completed, and the patient may be responsible for unexpected expenses. Both of these could harm the reputation of your firm.

Typically, the following procedures are required to complete the verification of benefits:

  • Obtaining schedules from the hospitals and confirming coverage with the appropriate insurance provider
  • Obtaining approval for each procedure before performing it
  • Checking information on eligibility and benefits, such as when the coverage begins and ends, co-payment amounts, and more
  • Including the most recent and accurate data in the invoicing system

Significance of Insurance Verification Process in Medical Billing

Insurance providers may not pay claims submitted by your clinic if you fail to perform the medical insurance verification. Failure to do so could harm your practice’s reputation and revenue.

Medical insurance verification offers the following benefits:

1. Raises Cash Flow

It is crucial to maintain precision in determining insurance eligibility. It results in a greater number of clean claims, accelerating claim approval and shortening the billing cycle. If you don’t investigate it further, it could result in claim denials and bad debts, which would be detrimental to your practice.

2. Minimizes Claim Denials and Rejections

Rejection or denial of claims is commonplace in the healthcare industry. However, insurance coverage verification improvements may not significantly impact the frequency of denied claims. Since insurance information changes frequently, keeping up with the laws and remaining one step ahead can facilitate medical billing. It assists by decreasing the likelihood of claims being rejected, billing errors occurring, and reimbursement delays.

3. Enhances Patient Satisfaction

Over 90% of your patients will inquire if they are required to make the initial payment. Therefore, your staff’s primary responsibility is to contact the insurance carrier before beginning treatment or providing services. Your patients should be able to obtain immediate responses to any inquiries they have regarding their eligibility for insurance coverage. You should also be ready to inform them of the costs associated with services not covered by their insurance. Thus, they can prepare their budget and any other necessary arrangements.

Consequently, your patients will believe that you are extremely trustworthy and that they have not been charged for anything they don’t know. Additionally, it increases both revenue and patient satisfaction.

Best Practices for Medical Insurance Verification

Consider the following tips for the medical insurance verification process:

  • Choose the appropriate way of verification, depending on your knowledge.
  • During the medical insurance verification process, front office employees should ask the appropriate questions.
  • All information, including the information on insurance cards, must be kept secure.
  • Even if the patient claims their insurance has not changed, a copy of their card should be requested.
  • You can verify the accuracy of the card’s information by phoning the insurance company.
  • Check and recheck the patient’s medical record to ensure that the information is accurate. Inform the patient as quickly as possible of any out-of-pocket expenses.
  • Maintain a written policy on patient payment and provide it to them.
See Also: Stay Coding Compliant with Medical Audits

Conclusion

Medical insurance verification is crucial for the profitability of your practice. Incorrectly verifying a patient’s insurance coverage before providing care might result in a payment delay or denial, which can negatively impact a practice’s bottom line. You can prevent this costly error by verifying the patient’s eligibility before each appointment. The patient’s eligibility must be checked accurately and on time for the healthcare practitioners to understand the pertinent information completely.

The most crucial stage in medical practice is verifying the patient’s insurance coverage. This stage entails confirming a patient’s eligibility for coverage under their insurance plan before the service date. Even though you should not ignore the verification of benefits for medical practice, practices cannot immediately verify benefits and react to requests while caring for patients. Due to this, many doctors and nurses delegate the process of validating their patients’ insurance coverage to a reputable medical billing organization. Precision Hub is one of those services that provide expert assistance for validating benefits. They have a team of experts in eligibility verification and RCM dedicated to helping you increase your revenue and profitability. So, book your consultation now.