Being a small and independent clinic with a few providers you may have experienced billing and coding issues resulting in lower revenue and a reduction in collection rate. Today’s medical billing procedures are complicated and usually, clinics are okay with low reimbursement rates as revenue cycle management seems like an intimidating task. According to some studies, the error rate of medical bills accounts at 30 to 40%, while others put it around 80 to 90% as revealed by The Huffington Post. Another study revealed that medical billing errors cost about $20 billion in the United States.
Having said that, fortunately, there are a few options for independent practices to enhance their medical billing and coding to boost the practice’s financial performance and maintain a steady revenue stream. By improving financial workflow processes your practice can get paid faster, and that’s the financial goal of all medical practices.
3 ways to enhance medical billing and coding
- Everyone in your practice should aim to improve medical billing and coding – Rejected claims or denied claims can be a big issue for small practices as they are understaffed and find it difficult to meet the deadlines to resubmit the claims. Most rejected claims can be avoided easily if practices know why they are being rejected in the first place. A claim can be rejected due to the following reasons, the patient information is incorrect, insurance information is improper, and there are coding and documentation errors, and when payer-specific requirements are not fulfilled. These errors can easily be corrected if the staff members verify all necessary patient information before entering. The clinical staff is advised to go through all necessary documents before the claim is sent to the billing department. The billers should also know the specific requirement of each payer to ensure precision and avoid missing the closing date.
- Use third-party services – Third-party services may include a claim scrubbing service which will double-check your claims before they are submitted. This will make sure that claims are not rejected and accepted the first time of submission. The claim scrubbing services will detect any errors so you can correct them before they are sent to the payer to avoid the issue of denied claims.
- Consider outsourcing – It can be difficult for your small team to manage the complicated billing procedures and you may lack the cash to maintain an in-house finance team. Independent practices that strive to excel financially consider outsourcing to a medical billing company that can manage your billing processes and optimize practice revenue through Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) software and Billing Services EMR Software solutions. This way your cash flow can improve and your staff members can focus on providing better services to patients at the clinic which can keep patients satisfied.
Moving Ahead
If your independent practice is planning to outsource medical billing then the software vendor must offer the features and functionalities of medical scheduling, analytics, and reporting, payment processing, claims scrubbing, and seamless integration with your EHR software system. Outsourcing medical billing can make your front desk office management more convenient and productive. Once your patient billing processes run smoothly you can be on top of your financial goals and make sure that your workflows get efficient with robust tools.
