“Do I outsource my medical billing and revenue cycle management, or do I perform everything in-house?”
It turns out that outsourcing medical billing can be extremely beneficial for medical practices. However, it may not be for everyone, depending on the outcome of a “needs assessment.” Altron HealthTech has worked with medical practices – big and small – to help them deliver the best healthcare services for several years. Over time, we have seen practices be successful both with in-house billing and outsourced billing solutions.
We are committed to our customers in healthcare delivery and with regards to this issue, we share some of the reasons why every medical practice should consider outsourced billing to help them determine if it is the suitable solution for their business.
- Real-Time Benefit Checks
f a practice relies on staff to spend more time verifying patient information/medical aid details, it may have a ripple effect on the time needed to ensure that claims are sent out timeously and effectively worked on for full remuneration of services rendered.Instead, it is easier and more efficient to implement tools in the practice that allow staff members to rapidly verify medical aid information. The medical billing company focuses on your billing and revenue cycle management on your behalf. - Lower the risk of claim rejections
Mistakes are possible even in the most professional of environments. It is not an indictment on your staff to suggest there could be a better approach to handling a rise of mistakes in billing or putting in codes for diagnosis and treatment. By outsourcing billing, you can minimise the risk of billing mistakes.Medical billing businesses such as MedeServe spend all their time working with ICD10 and tariff codes. Their staff is highly experienced in this regard and will commit far fewer claim rejections. - Improve Patient Experience
A key predictor of a practice’s long-term success is based on the experience the patient receives from their healthcare provider.Since practice staff is no longer concerned with the details of billing statements, they are free to engage with patients with less urgency to move them along, making the patient experienced more relaxed. - Compliance with Regulations
It can be quite a burden to stay on top of governmental regulations in healthcare. And if you fall out of compliance, the problems can be severe, such as investigations by the HPCSA and Council of Medical Schemes. It takes a lot of effort to work as a full-time compliance officer, after all. If the practice staff is doing double-duty, such as making appointments for patients one moment and documenting compliance issues the next, staff will likely be spread too thin to do a good job at either task. - Lower Costs of Ensuring Normal Billing Activity
The process your practice uses to print out and mail medical bills and then to stay on top of payments takes a lot of time and effort. Giving this work to the medical billing company will cut down the costs and time. Spending less money on overseeing payments from the time of service to finally getting compensated means you can devote more resources to other, higher priority items, such as patient experience. - Faster Claims Processing and Collections
Patients sometimes lag in paying their bills, which leads to more staff overhead just to get the compensation your practice deserves. One great option when using outsourced medical billing is that the company can issue payment reminders to patients. - Less Administrative Requirements
The amount of time and attention practice staff must devote to routine administrative duties is immense. From training to refresher courses on the latest billing codes to preparing submission paperwork, there is a lot of basic clerical activity that can be easily handled by a medical billing business for you. Eliminating some administrative tasks in the revenue cycle management is beneficial to the practice staff.
If you are considering outsourcing your medical billing processes, why not contact us at HealthTech.Sales@altron.com? Our MedeServe division is staffed with a highly efficient team dedicated to meet your practice administrative needs.
Written by: Themba Malinga
Article reference: Advance Data Systems Corp.
