HIPAA Compliant Medical Billing and Coding for Long Term Care Facilities and Hospitals
The aim of introducing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is to protect the patient’s healthcare information. It enhances the portability and continuity of health insurance coverage, reduces the expenses through improved efficiency, allows easy interchange of electronic data and ensures the privacy of personal health records. Providers of HIPAA compliant medical billing and coding services for long term care facilities and hospitals make sure that they always follow HIPAA standards.
HIPAA complaint medical billing services are provided with 100% accuracy; services include medical data entry or entering patient demographics; scheduling and re-scheduling; reviewing codes for appropriate use of modifiers, correct CPT/ICD-9 combinations; insurance verification and authorization, payment posting and reconciliation, medical claims billing – electronic and paper; AR collections, daily, weekly and monthly reports; and re-submission and referrals. Hospital/inpatient coding, medical coding audits, emergency room e-code evaluation, payer specific coding, DRG/ICD-9-CM coding validations, and CPT coding are some of the medical coding services offered by reliable medical coding and billing companies.
HIPAA Compliant Workflow and Policies
- No information leaves the office premises
- Follows managerial procedures to guard data integrity, patient confidentiality, and document availability
- Computers and windows are password protected
- Firewalls and antivirus software on all computers are updated daily
- Monthly back-ups of computer systems will be done and stored in a locked outbuilding on the medical billing firm’s property
- Periodic backup of data
- Virus definitions are updated daily
- All lockers used for storage are password protected
- 128-bit encryption for all transferred files
- Entire workforce is trained and monitored on HIPAA privacy, security, and confidentiality
- Special privacy regulations for staff handling the vital information
- Authorized access to data
- Secure storage facility
- Technical evaluations performed on a routine basis to make sure that all systems meet or exceed specified security requirements
To ensure HIPAA compliance, a medical billing company will have a pool of professionals to continuously monitor and execute various safety measures to protect against the unlawful disclosure of patient health information while it is transferred via the Internet. If you are an outsourcer, then you have the right to file a complaint against those who fail to meet the guidelines of HIPAA. Such medical billing and coding service providers will surely invite strict penalties.
Hiring an HIPAA Compliant Medical Billing and Coding Service Provider
Long term care facilities or hospitals planning to outsource their medical coding and billing requirements should locate a reliable HIPAA compliant medical billing company in the industry. Before hiring a provider of medical billing and coding services, healthcare facilities should learn all details regarding the security measures the company has taken to ensure HIPAA compliance.
About The Author
Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a leading healthcare business process outsourcing company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, focused on providing reliable medical billing and coding services.
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