As a healthcare provider, your goal is to help people. However, this type of work is unsure at times. If a healthcare worker makes a misstep, they could harm a person’s health. Even if there hasn’t been any maltreatment or mistake on the part of the healthcare practitioner, disagreements can result when physicians’ and patients’ […]
Articles posted by Alex J. Lau
Skilled Nursing Facility Versus Nursing Home

What’s the Difference Between a Skilled Nursing Facility and a Nursing Home? On the surface, a skilled nursing facility and a nursing home may appear rather the same. In fact, some care facilities actually function as both, with a distinct floor or section of a building dedicated to each. The difference between a skilled nursing […]
Billing, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Service, Nursing Billing, Nursing Facility Billing, Nursing Home, Old Folks Home, Skilled Nursing, Skilled Nursing Billing, Skilled Nursing Facility, Skilled Nursing Facility BillingWhy Aren’t Patients Using Patient Portals?

Why Your Patients are Failing to Use Your Portal Properly Patient Portal Challenges Healthcare consumers vary from tech-savvy Generation Z, Y and Millennials, familiar with rapid click-throughs, to straightforward answers, to patients with little or no faith or proficiency in computing tools. In any instance, just a few words can sum up the probable value-added […]
Confusion, Medical Patients, Medical Practice, Patient Portal, Patient Portal Problems, SecurityElectronic Claim Attachments: The Future Is Now

Submitting Electronic Claim Attachments One of the major strains on healthcare providers is the dependence on paper and manual procedures. This duo frequently adds up to harmful mistakes and costly denials, which demand significantly more time and effort to resolve, if left unchecked. Among the manual processes most difficult to manage are claim attachments that […]
Clearinghouse, EHR, Electronic Claim Attachments, Electronic Claims, EMR, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Software, Medical Billing Team, Medical Billing Tool, Outsourced Billing, Outsourced Medical Billing, RCM, Revenue Cycle ManagementBalancing Social Media and Patient Privacy in Healthcare

Social Media and Patient Privacy in Healthcare A Few Use Cases Use Case #1: Use Case #2: Protected Health Information (PHI) Preserving privacy of patients’ protected health information (PHI) is one of the major concerns linked to social media in healthcare. Privacy and protection of such information are dealt with in federal law and overseen […]
Facebook Healthcare, HIPAA, HIPAA Compliant, Instagram Healthcare, Internet HIPAA, Medical Billing, Medical Credentialing, Patient Privacy, PHI, Privacy, Safety Violations, Social Media, Social Media Healthcare, Social Media HIPAA, Social Media MedicalHL7 Standards: Building a Conduit Between Modern Healthcare and Advancing IT

HL7 (Health Level Seven) is a standard for swapping health information between medical applications. This standard identifies a format for the transmission of health-related information. Information transmitted using the HL7 standard is sent as a collection of one or more messages. Each message sends one record or item of health-related information. Background on HL7 Format Two […]
Healthcare Delivery, Healthcare Format, Healthcare HL7, HL7, HL7 StandardsPayer Contracting for Healthcare Providers: What Your Contract Contains, How to Negotiate It

Payer contracts determine what a healthcare practice gets paid for every service it delivers. They specify reimbursement rates by CPT code, define the provider network terms under which those rates apply, set claim submission deadlines, and contain termination and audit provisions that most providers never read before signing. In many practices, payers account for up […]
Medicaid, Medicare, Payer ContractingPayer Enrollment Versus Credentialing, What’s the Difference?

Hiring new providers brings energy and growth to any medical practice. Whether you’re bringing on a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant, adding talented healthcare professionals to your team opens doors to serving more patients and expanding your services. But there’s a catch that trips up even experienced practice managers, getting these new providers ready […]
Credentialing, credentialing on-boarding, Enrollment, Healthcare, Healthcare Credentialing, Medical Credentialing, Payer EnrollmentWhy You Should Integrate EHR Systems and Medical Billing

EHR Systems + Medical Billing Integration Medical billing and practice management has long been a labor-intensive task for healthcare providers. There’s little doubt, however, that the use of EHR (Electronic Health Records) or sometimes known as EMR (Electronic Medical Records) has considerably slashed these tasks by offering providers a proven method to effectively streamline their […]
Billing, Billing AI, Billing Automation, Billing Revenue, Billing Service, EHR, EHR (Electronic Health Records), EHR Integration, EHR Interoperability, Electronic Health Records, Electronic Medical Records, EMR, EMR (Electronic Medical Record), Health Level 7, HL7, Interoperability, Interoperability Standards, Medical BillingVaping and What Healthcare Providers Need to Know

What Healthcare Providers Need to Know about Vaping Both the U.S Food & Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control are working determinedly to look into the disturbing occurrences of severe respiratory illness connected with the use of vaping products. Both organizations are diligently working with state and local health officials to investigate these […]
Cancer, CDC, e-cigarette, EHR, Healthcare, Lung Association, Vape, Vape Pen, Vaping, VaporThe Role of AI in Medical Billing and Coding

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic right now with many speculating on how it will change the way we live our lives. In fact, we’ve already discovered that in the medical field there are numerous ways that AI can be employed to improve overall performance. As a prime example, medical billing and coding have […]
AI, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Healthcare, Billing, Billing AI, EHR, EHR RPA, Health Level 7, Healthcare AI, HL7, Insurance, Medical Billing, Medical Billing AI, Medical Billing Artificial Intelligence, RPAIs Telehealth Here to Stay?

Telehealth is Useful, but is it Here to Stay? Maybe we really don’t want to talk about it, but truth is, major calamities like the COVID-19 pandemic often lead to innovations in healthcare. As a prime example, the use of virtual care skyrocketed as people, asked to socially distance, looked for substitutes for in-person visits. […]
AI, AI in Healthcare, AI in Telehealth, AI Telehealth, Corona, Corona Virus, Coronavirus, COVID, COVID-19, Healthcare, Healthcare Delivery, Healthcare Outcomes, Ian Tong, Meg Barron, Telehealth, Telehealth AI, TelemedicineHow COVID-19 Affected the Provider-Payer Relationship

Provider-Payer Relationship Under COVID-19 COVID-19 Upset Provider-Payer Relationships The COVID-19 pandemic has affected most, if not all, businesses everywhere. For healthcare, in particular, the pandemic and its consequences altered the ways that payers and providers do business with one another. How So? Let’s catch a momentary peek at several of the more immediate effects on […]
Coronavirus, Coronavirus billing, COVID billing, COVID test kits, COVID testing billing, COVID-19, COVID-19 testing, Healthcare Billing, Medical Billing, Outsourced Billing, Outsourced Medical Billing, Provider-PayorDoes Artificial Intelligence (AI) Help or Hurt Healthcare Processes?

No matter the industry, artificial intelligence (AI) has become routine and commonplace. When it comes to healthcare, AI helps practitioners streamline tasks, expand operational efficiencies and simplify complicated medical procedures. AI in medical billing and coding is becoming increasingly more crucial. Although AI is certainly transforming the healthcare industry, this technology is still quite new. As […]
AI, AI Healthcare, AI medical, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Healthcare, Healthcare, Healthcare KPIs, Healthcare Outcomes, Medical BillingMedical Billing Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

What is Robotic Process Automation? When you come across the term “robotic process automation,” you might think it sounds rather futuristic. However, RPA, as it’s often termed, is a technology being deployed more and more in the healthcare industry, including medical billing. Robotic process automation (software) consists of tools that partly or fully automate human […]
Billing Automation, Billing RPA, EHR, EHR RPA, EMR, EMR RPA, Health Level 7, HL7, Insurance, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Automation, Medical Billing Robotic Process Automation, Medical Billing RPA, RCM, Revenue Cycle Management, Robotic Process Automation, Robotic Process Automation Billing, Robotic Process Automation Medical Billing, RPA, RPA BillingWhat is Revenue Leakage and How to Stop It?

“Revenue leakage” describes circumstances wherein a healthcare provider has supplied care to a patient but doesn’t collect payment. In general, it happens when accounts receivable (AR) continue to be unpaid for too long and are inadvertently overlooked. The longer an account receivable remains outstanding, the less likely healthcare providers are to retrieve payment, even in […]
A/R, Healthcare, Healthcare Denials, Healthcare Reimbursement, Healthcare Revenue Cycle, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Denials, RCM, RCM Challenges, RCM Essentials, RCM SupportDoes Medicare Cover (Mental Health Services) such as Therapy?

Behavioral / Mental Health Services + Medicare Sometimes it can be problematic for older adults to differentiate indicators of mental health difficulties for typical aging-related changes. They may think that experiencing sadness or anxiety is an ordinary symptom of growing older, particularly when they live with taxing health conditions or lose loved ones. Deteriorating health […]
Behavioral Health, Behavioral Health Billing, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Coverage, Medicare Therapy, Mental Health, Mental Health BillingWhat Does Medicare Cover for Home Healthcare?

Home Health Services + Medicare What does Medicare Cover for Home Healthcare? If you’re looking for an answer to the question, “What does Medicare cover for home healthcare?”, you’ve probably typed it into a search engine and immediately closed the tab. The amount of information and the level of detail can quickly become confusing and […]
Healthcare, Healthcare Services, Home Health Care, Home Health Services, Home Healthcare, Medicaid, Medicaid Billing, Medicaid Coverage, Medicare, Medicare Billing, Medicare CoverageCommon Cases of Medicare, Medicaid Fraud

Medicare, Medicaid Fraud Examples and Steps to Ensure You Don’t Commit It *These are examples of fraud as it relates to Medicare and Medicaid. Medical fraud is the intentional deception or misrepresentation of healthcare transactions by the provider for the sake of receiving unauthorized benefits or financial gain. Healthcare fraud is committed when a dishonest […]
Billing Fraud, False Claims Act, Fraud, Medicaid, Medicaid Billing, Medicaid Fraud, Medical Billing Fraud, Medicare, Medicare Billing, Medicare Fraud, UpcodingWhere Does Your Revenue Cycle Management Need to Be?

Your Revenue Cycle Management Status Healthcare providers faced a tidal wave of challenges at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of which endure consequences today. It’s not surprising that the revenue cycle did not evade these challenges. The shutdown and transfer to a generally virtual care world presented substantial bedlam that the revenue cycle […]
RCM, RCM Challenges, RCM Essentials, Revenue Cycle Challenges, Revenue Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle Management Concerns, Revenue Cycle Management Issues, Revenue Cycle OptimizationPatient Payment Trends Moving Forward

Patient Payments in Healthcare are Changing In spite of a “hot-vaxxed summer,” the COVID-19 pandemic lingers, and sadly, even more robustly in some places than ever before. It’s also continuing to take its toll on healthcare consumers, both psychologically and financially. That’s one of several reasons why it’s more critical than ever for healthcare providers […]
Digital Payments, Healthcare, Healthcare Payments, Medical Billing, Medical Digital Payments, Medical Payments, Patient Payments, Payment Trends, TelehealthWhat Do Patients Want from Billing?

Healthcare Patient Billing Expectations Patients believe every aspect of their healthcare experience contributes to their care, including the medical payment and billing process. And a negative payment incident could impact a patient’s overall impression of a healthcare organization, even if the rest of their experience was positive. According to survey results, patient satisfaction ratings fall […]
Billing, Billing Service, Healthcare, Medical, Medical Bill, Medical Bill Process, Medical Claims, Medical Patients, Medical PaymentHealthcare Revenue Cycle Management Challenges

Healthcare Practices Face RCM Challenges Healthcare providers of all shapes and sizes are struggling to fine-tune their revenue cycle to adapt to changes in the billing world. Constant changes to the healthcare system have brought about a variety of new challenges for providers and patients alike. This is particularly true for smaller practices who must […]
Healthcare RCM, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Software, RCM, RCM Practices, RCM Support, Revenue Cycle, Revenue Cycle Challenges, Revenue Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle Optimization9 Steps for a Proactive Medical Billing Strategy

Isn’t it Time to Become More Proactive in Your Medical Billing Payment Strategies? “Do you believe in miracles?” During the 1980 Winter Olympics, the U.S. National Hockey Team miraculously vanquished the Soviet Union Team (who had won the gold medal in the six previous Olympics). It has been noted that one of the chief factors […]
Basics of Medical Billing, Collection Process, Medical Billing, Medical Billing Strategies, Medical Billing Strategy, Outsourced Medical Billing, Patient Collections, Revenue Cycle Management, Robotic Process Automation, RPAMedical Providers: Never Underestimate the Importance of Your Front Desk Staff

Medical Providers Should Never Underestimate Front Desk Staff Value Patient/Customer Relations Whether it’s a medical practice or any other type of business, there is nothing as critical as patient/customer relations. What helps distinguish thriving medical practices from others is the interface of patients with your front desk staff. After all, it’s here where they handle […]
Healthcare, Healthcare Billing, Medical Billing, Medical Front Desk, Medical Office Staff, Medical Patient Flow, Medical Patients, Medical Provider, Patient Flow, Patient Relations, RCM
