Medical practices now have to follow insurance companies unique rules and regulations along with rapidly changing coding standards for submitting their claims , accuracy is the key in getting their claims being accepted and paid on time by the insurance companies. with the burden of knowledge being so vast and huge, Medical Practice can lose money due to wrong coding, ignored claims, denials, and underpayments or even due to lost claims.
Employing a staff for billing purposes can get expensive. Even to hire just one new person practice has to think about the employee's salary, benefits, taxes, vacation, health insurance, retirement plans, social security, unemployment, etc, just these all may equal as much as 20% to 30% of salary and wages total.
Another major expense is employees training costs ,because coding and reimbursement rules and regulations are continuously changing and may change substantially from year to year. ICD-10 will significantly change the way coding is done, an example is ICD-10 has 155,000 codes vs. ICD-9's 18,000. Per recent study sponsored by Medical Group Management Association, it will cost $28,000 per physician to convert to ICD-10.so It is imperative for billing staff to stay current on industry developments, not only for compliance issues, but also to protect your bottom line.
Using an outside billing service saves you from all the above mentioned issues and also eliminates the headache of training and familiarizing a staff with billing and coding procedures, A billing service has already trained professionals who are well versed with the latest health care laws, like HIPAA and the Health Care Reform bill, Technically, outsourced billing companies have more billing and coding expertise as well as necessary resources, and can assist you in choosing an EMR (Electronic Medical Records) software, packaged with billing and practice management softwares. Sometimes for an added fee, these companies can provide valueable services like setting up patients appointment or sending out appointment reminders or doing electronic eligibility verification, patient's follow-up, coding, consulting, and data reporting. For one lump sum amount, you can outsource these services that might have been costly to handle within your practice,and most importantly free up your time so you can focus on your patient's and practice.
Give us a call and experience the difference and we are confident that we will earn your business for life.