Medical Practice Management Challenges Solved by Outsourced Medical Billing
Quality, Outsourced Medical Billing is the Answer
The billing team at Capitol Healthcare practice had been reaching a high bar of excellence. But that bar was endangered when long-time staff members began to retire. “Some of the staff had been here for a long time, like 25 years, but they were retiring and moving on,” says the practice’s contract administrator. “We were losing key personnel that really understood the practice and, moreover, were leaving with only 15 days’ notice.”
Staffing, as a whole, has been a genuine challenge for healthcare organizations emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic and early retirement. The strain from tackling a pandemic has induced more healthcare professionals to retire or even completely exit the profession. In the meantime, a substantial decline in the number of patients and thus, revenues, has pushed numerous practices to cut back non-essential staff, some permanently.
Moving on from the thick of the pandemic, practices are experiencing the need to reengage not only their patients but their staff as well. But, as you no doubt are aware, finding professionals who are skilled in areas such as revenue cycle management has always been challenging, particularly for a specialty practice.
Day-to-day practice management challenges such as staffing shortages and retaining talent can be solved by outsourced medical billing.
6 Advantages of Outsourced Medical Billing:
- Allows Patient-Centered Care
You can do one thing well or many things poorly. For a healthcare provider, that one thing must be patient care. Healthcare providers simply cannot successfully deliver outstanding care if they’re caught up in the administrative and financial area of the practice. By outsourcing non-core tasks and boosting revenue cycle management, providers can focus more on what they do best – diagnosing and treating a patient. It’s essential to balance non-care responsibilities to promote the practice’s therapeutic services. Fewer administrative tasks help healthcare personnel readjust their focus on handling workload bringing about better care standards and a boost in patient satisfaction. - Trims Billing Mistakes and Assures Billing Compliance
Medical billing companies’ chief purpose is to assure that claims are submitted correctly in a well-timed manner and much of this can be done through billing automation. By engaging billers who have undergone detailed training and those armed with know-how on the billing process cuts the number of denied and rejected medical claims. All in all, it boosts feedback assistance on reimbursements and impending assets. Since this is an ever-evolving industry, by working with an outsourced team, you stay in touch with the most recent modifications in regulations to keep up compliance and assure submitting clean claims. - Cost Effective and Enhanced Cash Flow
Perhaps the most asked question in most any industry is, “What to do if labor costs are mounting faster than your business?” By outsourcing, you can curtail thousands of dollars from operating costs while capturing a constant flow of profit. Outsourcing creates a pool of experts in support of the practice, avoiding you the costs in securing and training extra staff. Cutting the amount of work and administrative responsibilities for your staff boosts productivity, efficiency and self-confidence, which is related to a boost in patient satisfaction. Happy patients create profit and increase cash flow by their turning into living testimonies of the level of service they experienced. - Regulatory and Payer Fulfillment
With the blizzard of federal, state and local government guidelines and payer rules, providers are being obliged to juggle all pieces of their medical practice. Failure to observe these rules and regulations could be associated with severe consequences. Says one senior executive of a major healthcare facility, “The regulations to stay on top of – in terms of changes in charge master and CPT codes and all of the modifications that our payers could sneak in throughout the course of a year – are difficult to keep up with.” Connecting with an outside company that’s created innovative processes to track these charges means compliance and helps providers stay in front of the seemingly endless state of change. - Cash Collection Speed & Accuracy
By the time it takes to get paid, it’s already too late as denials, errors and dreadful processes have already been introduced. The right RCM partner will take care of those issues. They’ll put into action verified best practices and the mechanics to power increases in monthly cash flow and overall collections swiftly and efficiently. “There’s always been this conversation about ‘Do you make it, or do you buy it?’ It would have taken us probably an easy five years to develop the competency that we needed. And we didn’t have that kind of time,” says one health practice CEO, when discussing outsourcing. Because of these financial enhancements, your organization can reinvest that infusion of cash to better attend to your patients. Whether it’s improved facilities, better equipment or added staff, the speed to value quickly adds up. - Hiring and Retaining Competent Staff
Finally, one of the major practice management challenges healthcare providers confront is staffing. Recruiting, hiring and keeping skilled and dependable staff can really suck up precious time and money. Employing an in-house billing staff, as a prime example, might first appear as a good idea, but it might not be worth the difficulty of locating and keeping people. It’s also not a very sound idea to have employees who are not experienced in billing and documentation (such as front desk staff) carry out these tasks along with their other responsibilities. They are more apt to make mistakes which will only wind up costing you down the road. Outsourcing of this piece of your practice management is frequently a sound solution that will save you both time and money.
In Summary
Medwave offers healthcare practices of all sizes and specialties reasonably priced medical billing and credentialing with years of joint experience in documentation and accounts receivable management. We are U.S.-based and staffed. Our accuracy rates and payment turnaround says it all. Contact us to talk to a representative about how we can help you meet the challenges of practice management.