A healthy revenue system plays a significant role in maintaining the financial well-being of medical practice. Although, healthcare service providers look for innovative ways to streamline their revenue cycle management.
However, patient scheduling, proper documentation, patient access, accurate coding, prior authorizations, efficient denial management, proper reimbursement, and upfront payment collections are a few factors that go into maintaining a healthy RCM process.
And when a medical professional fails to perform these tasks efficiently it will result in more claim denials that negatively impact their revenue stream.
Common Errors within the Revenue process-
Patient registration is the first step of the RCM process. In this phase, it’s the responsibility of front-end staff to collect all information from the patient to bill the appropriate insurance provider. Generally, it involves patients’ personal data (i.e name, gender, date of birth, multiple phone numbers, address, insurance ID number), and insurance company information.
Though clerical mistakes were made during this stage i,e. failure to capture patients’ complete demographic information and failure to validate insurance eligibility or coverage are some problems that result in medical claim denial.
However, it is easy to identify and rectify these errors with the help of EHR/EMR solutions. These tools help to catch common billing errors before sending a claim to the insurance company.
But the biggest problem is that many healthcare practitioners lack the proper tools and staff to efficiently manage their revenue cycle processes. They also find it challenging to manage both billing procedures and quality care services at the same time.
That’s why they prefer to outsource their billing services to a professional medical billing company. These companies have skilled, fully trained, and certified billing and coding staff who collect payments both from insurance companies and patients on healthcare practitioners’ behalf. As a result, healthcare providers can provide more quality care service to their patients. When patients get maximum time from their doctor then they will be more relaxed and satisfied.
So a trusted medical billing company can enhance the overall finances and prosperity of medical practice. The reason to outsource medical billing services is to cut down overhead costs which can be difficult for some medical practitioners to manage on their own.
Anyhow, there are many other benefits that a medical facility can get by outsourcing its billing services to experts. Here are listed the top six benefits that help to improve a healthcare practice’s overall reimbursement rate and ensure a streamlined revenue flow.
Cut Down Mistakes: When all billing and coding procedures are handled by experts. It will help to reduce errors and mistakes. Because the outsourced medical billing collection agency has integrated practice management systems and claims scrubbing tools. That helps to prevent common errors that, most of the time, occur due to utilizing manual claim processing systems.
The billing professionals also double-check and verify each patient’s information before sending a medical claim to payers. They automate all billing procedures that help to save a significant amount of time, revenue, and resources.
Better Safety: Many healthcare providers fear that their highly confidential patient information might get hacked while outsourcing. But outsourcing billing procedures to third-party is completely safe and secure.
outsource medical billing experts ensure a 100% HIPAA compliance process to safeguard against any hacking attempts. The billing specialists ensure medical practices that their data is kept confidential at all times. Because they’ll work hard to follow HIPAA rules and regulations to protect patient data.
Enhanced Transparency: Some healthcare service providers believe that outsourcing means giving up control of revenue collection management, but it’s entirely wrong. By hiring expert RCM assistance, medical practitioners can achieve greater transparency and control.
Healthcare service providers can review compiled data and monitor the RCM process at any time. The well-experienced billing agencies give healthcare providers up-to-the-minute evaluations of how their medical practice is doing whenever they need it.
Streamline Revenue: These billing agencies provide convenient and easy payment options to patients i.e, debit/credit card, patient portal, cash, check, web banking, and Paypal. So patients can easily pay their bills and dues without any difficulty whenever they want.
It will help to improve collections that result in maximum revenue. By outsourcing, healthcare practitioners can save on salaries, staff training, and benefits costs. Medical facilities can also save costs on furniture, office supply, maintaining, purchasing, and updating of hardware.
To prevent incorrect adjustments, the billing specialists also keep track of all financial details and review the payments. They also help to ensure that insurance carriers are paying the accurate amount.
Open Up-
Outsourcing medical billing services to experts can be extremely beneficial for a healthcare facility. So, before choosing any medical billing company make sure that they are providing services according to your practice needs. Before making a decision, here are some key things to ask the companies that you are considering.
- Are they HIPAA compliant?
- What will it cost, any additional charges including hidden charges?
- How many years of experience do they have in this field?
- What type of reports are they providing?
- Can they guarantee transparency?
- Do they have a proven system for claim management?
- Are they familiar with coding in your field?
- Turnaround time of payment recovery?
- How many days are taken for accounts receivable?
- Their number of follow-up claims every month?