10 Reasons to Outsource Medical Billing
Apart from the doctors and caregivers, a medical office or hospital is only as good as its backend staff. The people in charge of billing and coding are the invisible engines in the healthcare machinery, and it's their job to ensure billing is done properly and all the medical codes are up-to-date, so as to ensure their patients are reimbursed properly.
At the same time, medical billing can be a demanding and challenging task for many medical practitioners and firms who do not have access to the required skilled manpower to perform the tasks properly. As a result, healthcare providers, physicians, and practitioners prefer to outsource their medical billing requirements to a third-party service provider.
So why outsource medical billing? Apart from saving time and money, medical billing has a lot of other advantages. One should consider all the benefits of outsourcing medical billing before making a decision. In this article we have listed the various reasons as to why it is a better option to opt for offshore medical billing services in certain cases.
Outsource Medical Billing - 10 Reasons
While outsourcing is not a new concept, it might be a tricky decision to outsource medical billing. This is because medical billing and coding go hand-in-hand, and unless your service provider is expert at identifying the correct codes, it can result in the bills coming out awry, thereby resulting in large-scale losses. On the other hand, when done correctly, outsourcing can be a pain-free process giving you ample amount of time to concentrate on your core business strategies. Some of the key reasons to outsource medical billing include:
1. Increased Control: It is a common misconception that by outsourcing your medical billing services you can lose control over your business processes. In fact many people feel that they have better control over their medical billing processes and the money involved due to a trained and dedicated outsourced billing staff. This increased control directly ties in with your operational benefits, which stand to benefit from outsourcing.
2. Increased Revenues: By outsourcing medical billing, companies can save a lot of time and money in terms of salaries, office infrastructure, purchasing, upgrading, and maintaining billing software. With the reduction in overhead costs, timely submission of claims and increased reimbursements will result in increased revenues for the firm as well.
3. Better Safety: Outsourcing your billing processes to a third-party service provider is completely safe. Well-established outsourcing companies provide a very transparent billing process. Most of the service providers have a HIPAA-compliant and 100% secure medical billing processes to safeguard against any hacking attempts. Companies need to have the assurance that their data is kept confidential at all times, and well-regarded outsourcing providers have the desired security and infrastructure to provide a safe haven for medical billing outsourcing operations.
4. Changing Regulations: The rules and regulations of the medical billing world are constantly changing. Keeping up with all the changes can be time consuming and cumbersome for any firm. By outsourcing your medical billing requirements, the changes in rules and regulations will be managed by the outsourcing partner, as they would make it a point to stay up-to-date with the latest changes. This frees up time for you to focus on other operational areas.
5. Reduced Labor Costs: An average company spends about 30-40% of their collections on the medical billing process. By outsourcing these medical billing tasks they can save a lot of unnecessary costs. The need for hiring a dedicated medical billing team is avoided by outsourcing, as well as the money spent on training them and keeping them up-to-date with the latest regulations.
6. No Capital Investment: When a company outsources medical billing it no longer has to buy the billing software or any of the latest equipment. The company has to no longer deal with costly software upgrade investments as well. As one does not have to own a complete billing system, the costs are greatly reduced, and in many cases, they can get started easily without any initial capital investments at all.
7. More Time for Patients: When the medical billing processes are outsourced to a third-party, health practitioners have more time to concentrate on the patients rather than spending time on their billing processes. It makes good business sense to invest your business time into your core competencies like quality patient care and outsource ancillary business functions to service providers.
8. Access to Trained Specialists: Most offshore service providers have trained employees who are highly experienced individuals and are well-versed with all the business requirements of outsourced medical billing and coding. They review and follow-up all payments and make sure all the carriers are paying the right amount. Every outstanding claim is tracked until it is processed and the full amount is paid, thereby reducing overheads.
9. Adherence to ICD 10: The latest version of the ICD, i.e. ICD 10 is a rising concern amongst the medical community. The new coding changes have had a massive impact on the time management and payment outcomes for health providers. Outsourcing medical billing will mean that all the coding changes brought in by ICD 10 will be handled by the outsourcing company, most of whom are already well-versed with the sweeping regulations involved.
10. Happy Patients: For most patients, going to the hospital itself is a time-consuming, and in certain cases, a bad experience. Not only do they have to come to terms with the various medicines and care they need to adhere to, but also understand the costs involved. A knowledgeable and friendly staff can ensure that your patients remain happy throughout their stay, while all the financial problems are handled by an expert service provider. This means you won't have to harry patients with financial matters and they can deal directly with the professional medical billing staff of the service provider. This helps everyone to work more effectively and efficiently.
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Work Hassle-free by Opting for Flatworld's Medical Billing Outsourcing Services
The medical billing department at Flatworld Solutions ensures that all the bills are submitted on time and with the correct information. We understand the importance of entering the right information so there are no delays or denials on behalf of the insurance provider. Our team is trained to perform medical and coding related to patient demographics, CPT and ICD codes with modifiers, etc.
If you have any kind of medical billing requirements, feel free to get in touch with us or talk to one of our representatives and we will get back to you within 24 hours.
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