Thursday, October 18, 2012

Medical Billing Services - Why Contracting Them Is Such A Good Idea

By Allien H. Zapata


Outsourcing to medical billing services is a common practice among physicians these days, because it permits them to concentrate on practicing medicine rather than bill collecting. There are several ways that outsourcing helps physicians to do this, and the top four are listed below.

Insurance carriers and compliance and regulatory agencies are constantly changing and updating billing rules, which makes staying current with the latest billing requirements an incredible task that requires a lot of staff member time, energy, and effort. Contracting medical billing services can help them to attend to important patient matters, instead of having to postpone them until they can get around to them.

The consistent changes that agencies make to insurance requirements and laws oblige in-house billing staff to have to update their software with each change, which is an expensive process. Billing services eliminate the need to buy, install, troubleshoot, and maintain these expensive (and sometime frustrating) software systems.

A billing agency also tends to have less rejected claims than an in-house billing department. This is partly due to the fact that they are paid a percentage of the money you get back from insurance claims, meaning they are more motivated to make sure you have as many accepted claims as possible. The same is not true of an internal biller because they are paid the same, regardless of whether you have a high or low claim rejection rate. Because they only deal with billing, these agencies are also better able to focus on the details involved with filing insurance claims, which saves time and increases your accepted claims ratio.

Fraudulent employee claims are an aspect that many people fail to consider. Each year, countless employees with access to billing information make illegal insurance claims. Contracting medical billing services creates a check and balance system that makes it easier to keep track of funds, and identify any financial anomalies that might indicate a fraudulent claim.

In a nutshell, outsourcing will keep you updated on claim requirements, save you money on software and internal billing employee wages, lower claim rejections, and significantly reduce the change of employee theft. All of these reasons make using one of the countless medical billing companies available out there a practical option for your business. Investigate the companies that are out there and choose one that will meet your needs and requirements, so that you and your staff can use your time to focus on the more important facets of patient care.




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