Medical Billing Outsourcing – Choosing an Appropriate Service Provider
Poorly managed medical billing can be quite damaging to medical practices. Assigning the correct medical codes, determining the patient’s eligibility, submitting claims duly to the payers and other related jobs are all processes that require consistent attention. Medical professionals usually outsource medical billing requirements to a medical billing company to keep track of insurance billing codes, rejected claims and uncollected revenue. Medical billing and coding processes have to be assigned to a professional medical billing company that has in-depth knowledge and excellent experience in offering end-to-end medical billing services.
Medical billing companies manage your entire billing process, track your accounts, submit claims to insurance companies and follow up on them so as to ensure you receive payments on time. They also provide services such as patient enrollment, insurance enrollment, charge entry, submission of claims, insurance eligibility verification, accounts receivables follow-up, payment posting, denial analysis, scheduling and rescheduling, accounts receivables management and report maintenance.
Guidelines to Choose a Suitable Service Provider
You must consider several aspects before you sign a medical billing outsourcing contract. Listed here are a few guidelines that can help you find an appropriate medical billing company for your health care facility:
- Years of experience in the industry: Look for a provider with considerable medical billing service experience and a successful track record. Firms having many years experience and a reputable record in the field can deliver quality medical billing services. So prior to choosing a firm, it is necessary to check whether your service provider meets the requirements of your medical facility and ensures timely payment of claims.
- Comprehensive medical billing solution: Before hiring a company, it is necessary to find out whether the company you choose offers a comprehensive billing package which includes insurance/patient enrollment, scheduling, insurance verification and AR collections. Apart from these, some companies provide other services such as credentialing and medical coding and transcription.
- Efficient management of medical records: Some of the billing firms have their own software while some others use licensed software. Some provide both electronic and paper documentation of medical records. For the efficient management of records, billing firms use the latest software like NextGen, IDX, Medisoft, Inception, Lytec, Medic, Misys which would ensure accuracy. While hiring a firm, it is necessary to ensure that your records are professionally managed and you get periodic updates and reports as and when necessary.
- Compliance with HIPAA standards: Your patient’s medical information is strictly confidential. While employing a medical billing and coding company to handle sensitive and confidential medical records, you should make sure that the firm you choose complies with HIPAA regulations and follows 128 bit encryption for all transferred files.
Other Things to Consider
- Ensure that the practice management system provided by the company is useful and user-friendly.
- Check whether there is a provision for easy access to information such as outstanding claims, charge data, user notes, follow-up information and payments.
- Make sure that the terms and conditions on which the company works are flexible enough to make necessary changes as per client’s requirements.
Simply follow all the above mentioned points to ensure that the provider of medical billing services you choose is efficient enough to handle your medical billing process.
About The Author
OSI offers medical billing and coding services for clients to ensure timely reimbursement, ultimately affecting their bottom line and cash flow. OSI also offers quality physician billing services to prevent backlog and heavy financial losses in medical practices
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