If you run a medical practice, then you need to focus on medical billing. You might think that it isn’t as important as other aspects of the practice, but if your billing isn’t organized, it can cause frustration for both you and your patients. For this reason, you might consider hiring a 3rd party medical billing company to do your billing for you. These companies know all about medical billing and can focus solely on this while you focus on patients and their health needs. While it might be more expensive than hiring someone in-house, it’ll save you the time of training them, as well as provide you with support when you need it.
If you do decide to hire someone to do your medical billing in-house, they’ll need to know about billing procedure. The billing services medical care requires can get complicated as they go through insurance companies. They’ll also need to be sensitive to patient needs and privacy rights. If someone is going through a medically difficult time, they might be more sensitive while dealing with billing. It is important that whoever you hire can deal with this compassionately.
Did you know that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), medical coding employs an estimated 179,500 Americans? Medical coding and billing can be extremely complicated, and often distracts doctors and physicians in small practices from diagnosing and treating patients. What exactly does a medical billing and coding specialist do, and how do small practices benefit from using third-party medical billing services?
What is a Medical Coder?
Most companies staff separate employees to handle medical coding and billing. Why? Medical coding often requires a stringent certification exam. Coders will translate doctors’ diagnosis and medical tasks to ICD-9 codes. The ICD-9 codes may be used to document patients’ medical history, determine insurance coverage or reimbursement, and ultimately invoice patients for visits and treatment.
Medical billing specialists, on the other hand, will interpret these codes to format and print invoices. Billing specialists will also follow-up on payments, take care of collections, and make alternative payment arrangements if necessary. Specialists may focus on a particular area of expertise, such as MRI billing or orthopedic billing, or take care of all patient information and payments for a particular practice. Some companies will combine these positions or responsibilities.
Why Do Small Practices Benefit From Outsourcing?
Maintaining accurate health records can be challenging and time-consuming, especially without qualified employees. Small or private practices can benefit from out-of-house medical billing and processing for the following reasons:
- Third parties save time. Seeking out and screening qualified candidates can be challenging, especially when staff must have certain experience and certifications. Instead of focusing efforts on hiring and evaluating prospective employees, doctors’ offices can focus on seeing and treating patients.
- Outside medical billing services bring expertise. Standard practices are changing. Many hospitals and practices are converting to electronic medical records (EMRs). Small practices do not have to worry about the details and new technologies associated with these shifts. Medical billing services provide the software and dedicated and experienced staff
Running a small or private medical practice takes a considerable amount of time. Make sure time is dedicated to the things that matter most (patients and treatment!) by taking advantage outside medical billing services. Outside services can help process general or specific billing, such as physicians billing or MRI billing. More: www.apex4medbill.com