7 Advantages to Outsourcing Your Medical Billing

A thriving medical practice usually applauds its in-house medical billing employees for their help in contributing to the organizations’ success. Although these employees are great at doing their job, they often lack the availability or time needed to keep up with the evolving healthcare industry.

Even more so, if these employees need to take off time or leave the company altogether, you will fall behind on medical billing compliance. This is where outsourcing your medical billing tasks to a third party makes the most sense.

If you are on the fence about outsourcing your medical billing tasks, then you came to the right place. This brief guide will cover seven excellent advantages of outsourcing your medical billing work and who you can reach out to for more information.

Why Outsource Medical Practice Billing?

The process of outsourcing your company’s medical bills is very simple. All of your billing operations are handled off-site, from data entry all the way to following up on claims with health insurance companies. All superbills and other relevant documents needed to process all the billing requirements are electronically sent to the billing company.

This process can go much easier if you have all of your patient’s information stored in an EHR medical billing software. This also helps keep your patient information clear of any errors as there will be no second round of data entry needed.

1. Focuses on Patient Care

Nothing is more complicated than trying to wear different hats at the same time. Multi-tasking is possible, but it does diminish your quality of work.

Hospitals can free up their staff when you redirect your resources from managing complicated billing concerns and questions to focusing more on serving your patients. This ensures greater returns in all areas of your medical practice and allows medical professionals to focus their energy on providing clients with the best care possible.

These high-value activities not only generate more income for the medical facility but it also helps in creating and sustaining a more successful business with loyal patients. With medical billing outsourced, medical professionals can be relieved of navigating between regulatory requirements and fully concentrate on what they love doing, treating patients, and practicing medicine.

2. Improves Patient Satisfaction

The main focus of a medical professional is their patients, whereas outsourced vendors’ primary focus is maximizing your medical facility’s revenue. When you outsource your medical billing processes, the offshore medical billing service makes sure that each code submitted gets the correct reimbursement quickly.

This means that all errors are quickly identified, and denials are rapidly followed up. While your offshore team takes care of that portion, your doctors or other medical staff can be more empathetic towards patients. Your team will now be able to offer excellent customer service to their patients.

3. Ensures Billing Compliance

It is crucial that you make sure that your business is HIPAA compliant to avoid any penalties or consequences. If you fall out of compliance, you risk losing out on compensation from Medicaid or Medicare because you aren’t adhering to the latest updated rules on patient privacy.

When you partner with a company to outsource your medical billing, they will ensure that you stay up to date on any current compliance and regulation rules. The health care industry is constantly changing, so you will want to make sure that you work with a company that has the proper knowledge of those ever-changing rules and regulations.

It is no question that it takes a lot of brainpower to work as a compliance officer. If your staff members make appointments in one moment and then document compliance issues the next, your staff will most likely be spread too thin. This leaves a lot of room for any possible errors.

4. Lower Costs of Ensuring Regular Billing Activity

If your practice currently prints out and mails bills, it can be tough to keep track of who has paid their bills and who is falling behind in payments. Not only is it hard to keep track, but it also takes a lot of energy and effort to make sure everything is accurate.

When you give this work to a medical billing organization to handle on your behalf, it will help cut down on the costs associated with paying your staff to keep track of payments. Spending less money on overseeing your medical payments from the time of service to receiving compensation means that you can devote your resources elsewhere. You can use these newly freed-up funds to purchase new pieces of equipment or other important technology needed to keep your business competitive and up to date.

5. Strengthen Cash Flow

It isn’t uncommon for patients to sometimes lag when it comes time to pay their medical bills. This can lead to more staff overhead just to get the compensation your organization needs to stay afloat.

When you outsource your medical billing, you have the option to have that company send timely payment reminders to your patients. This will alleviate your staff from having to take care of chasing down patients for payment. They can now spend more time focusing on their patients and making sure they receive the best care possible.

6. Boosts Productivity

Did you know that third-party billing companies you outsource to have more tools to use your patient’s data more effectively than you can in house? Data mining information in your patient database will reveal a range of patterns that can help your medical office be more productive.

For example, you can mine data to reveal that you can properly adjust your staff’s schedules to handle patient flow based on historical patterns. This data will also show that some obstacles in your scheduling may need attention.

Another example is patient time in your exam rooms. After reviewing data, you may find that certain patients you treat need more time in the exam room than you thought, which can help increase customer service.

7. Automatically Checks Insurance Eligibility

If your medical practice depends heavily on temporary workers or part-time employees to handle verifying your patient’s insurance coverage, that can be a massive waste of your resources. Instead, you can allow your outsourced medical billing company to handle this portion on your behalf, streamlining the eligibility process.

When your medical billing company pre-check your client’s coverage information, you can find out your patient’s coverage status faster. This means that you have vital information about if they have met their deductible, what is and is not covered, and what requires pre-authorization.

Other Reasons to Outsource

The process of handling insurance bills is complex, with many different moving parts. As you know, there are many changes to the types of questions that may arise during the medical billing process.

For example, you may find yourself asking, “who do I call about this denial?” “Which is the most updated code modifier?”. The regulations for the industry are constantly changing and evolving, and if you don’t have a specialist on staff to keep up with these changes, you will fall behind. When you outsource, you are sure to have a team of people who constantly go through training to stay up to date.

Scalable Growth

There is much potential for scalable growth when medical billing complications do not anchor down your practice. This frees up so much more time for your medical professionals to focus on what they enjoy most, helping your patients get the care they need. Regardless of how big or small your practice is, outsourcing your billing tasks will help eliminate any interruptions, complications, or distractions that prevent your medical practice from reaching its full potential.

Is Medical Billing Outsourcing Right for Me?

Outsourcing may be the best billing solution for your company for many fantastic reasons listed above. You can definitely save a lot of time and money by outsourcing your billing to experts who know what to look for and how to handle your patient’s data appropriately. If you struggle to keep up with credentialing and billing, you most likely need to outsource your medical billing.

Other reasons to outsource your medical billing:

• Need a more thorough analysis of your financial performance
• If you have a hard time finding experienced medical billers
• You’re constantly falling behind on compliance issues
• Need to catch up on issuing reimbursements
• Claims denied due to billing errors that are easily prevented

If any of those listed bullets sound like anything your organization is going through, then it may be time to look into outsourcing your medical billing. As mentioned throughout the article, it is best to delegate all of your medical billing tasks to a company that specializes in medical billing so that you can focus on other administrative tasks for your company.

Is It Necessary to Outsource?

It is unnecessary to outsource your medical billing services, but if your bottom line is suffering, it may be a good idea to consider outsourcing. You can leave it to the medical billing experts to increase your revenue, maximize reimbursements, and help you get a transparent revenue cycle. Although insurers have waived their requirements, it does not guarantee that they will pay for the services your business rendered.

Preparing for Medical Billing Outsourcing

For many medical professionals who wish to improve the flow of revenue and cut down on any errors in coding or other issues that can further delay reimbursement, it makes sense to reach out to a third-party company to handle medical billing. Once you have decided to have your medical billing needs outsourced, there are a few things you must do before you make the transition.

Do Your Research

You will want to make sure that you take the time to research different medical billing outsourcing companies before you commit to the first one that pops up. There are helpful tools that you can use to compare quotes for various third-party companies.

You will want to thoroughly check out the company’s website, case studies, and reviews. It is always best to look at trusted blogs and other websites to see how they felt about working with that company and what they did not like. Reaching out to friends and family members who don’t compete with your organization is another great way to receive recommendations about who to partner with.

Prepare Your Team

With any significant changes, there is sure to be pushback from team members in your organization. Some of your office managers or doctors may not be as happy about the transition when they first hear about it.

It is always best to let your team know about the impending change well before implementing it. This gives them time to ask questions about the change and learn more about what will happen next.

If you receive any pushback about the changes, you can argue that the office won’t face any payment delays with outsourced medical billing if someone on the staff team gets sick or goes on vacation. The company that handles your outsourced billing has greater flexibility in its staffing levels, so your practice won’t feel the effects of a staff member leaving.

Outsource and Save Today!

Outsourcing your medical billing tasks helps increase your revenue in ways you don’t initially think about. Not only will your physicians have more time to spend with patients, but you will also be able to spend the money saved on improving and updating your medical practice.

If you are ready to find the best outsourcing company for you, reach out to us to compare quotes. We have all the tools you need to properly compare different companies to see which one best fits you and your organization’s needs.

Author: Mike Cynar

Mike Cynar brings buyers and sellers together by producing reviews and creating non biased webpages allowing users to share their experiences on various products and services. He and his staff write informative articles related to the medical field, legal, and other small business industries.