Medical billing outsourcing is not only sufficient but choosing a quality provider will help you produce quality healthcare, boost revenue, and improve patient satisfaction. As hiring the right source helps you maintain patient satisfaction and grow the industry’s effectiveness. Moreover, your team may lead to excellent results regardless of the financial matters.
What is medical billing outsourcing?
Medical billing outsourcing includes a third party dedicated to simplifying the reimbursement process for healthcare providers. They check on everything after the provider adds the visit notes and closed the encounter with the patient. It includes charge/coding review, claim submission, payment posting, fix and reprocess claim rejections, process appeals, accounts receivable management and patient payments, and statement call center. Handling medical billing workload in-house can be stressful and expensive, in addition to the hectic routine of practice.
In this regard, outsourcing medical billing to a dedicated third-party medical coding services provider can ease the work. Besides, the staffing shortage and cost-cutting measures in COVID-19 have brought this option to the surface as beneficial for both the healthcare provider and the insurance provider. The trend of medical billing outsourcing has become prevalent over the years as statistics show continued growth in the outsourced medical billing industry.
The Grand View Research report has predicted that the global outsourced medical billing market size is projected to reach $19.7 billion by 2026, with an annual growth rate of 11.8%. Another report by the Global Medical Billing Outsourcing Market 2021-2028 has found that the market for medical billing outsourcing is expected to reach $25.3 billion by 2028.
Why is medical billing outsourcing growing?
Experts state the following reasons for the growth of the medical billing outsourcing industry:
● Required implementation of the ICD-10 coding system
● Increasing healthcare costs
● Cut unnecessary in-house billing costs and alleviate the administrative burden
● Federal mandate to implement EMRs
Medical billing outsourcing benefits
Although medical students are taught to keep the billing process in-house, times are changing and so are the required practices. Managing a healthcare institute is a complex task with all its hustling activities. Additionally, the administrative costs are burdensome and require a great deal of vigilance to ensure smooth operations.
In-house medical coding and medical billing services can take a toll because of loopholes that disturb the system. This includes irregular payments from patients, unnoticed claims, slow reimbursement procedures, late submissions, and non-resubmissions. An estimate suggests that 70%-80% of patients owe $500 in medical bills. 45% of them owe $1000. Another estimate suggests that the in-house billing process values between 30%-40% of the total cash inflow. In this regard, medical billing outsourcing can solve these and many other issues for healthcare institutions.
Here are some medical billing outsourcing benefits:
1. Address the staffing issue
Managing staff is a difficult task for an institution. From training to employee benefits and remunerations, staffing becomes an ongoing expense. Medical billing companies take care of this workload for you and hire highly experienced staff on high salaries. They control the cost of the infrastructure to ensure your work is done well. On the other hand, in-house medical billing services require huge costs and time. Medical billing outsourcing provides a one-click solution to all these processes.
2. Eliminate the capital cost
Establishing the infrastructure for billing staff can cost an institute a fortune. It requires a building, equipment such as computers, server installations, internet, data centers, compliance management, etc. Maintenance of the infrastructure is an ongoing expense. Hiring a medical billing outsourcing company can eliminate the need to spend tons of money on equipment, buildings, and maintaining them.
3. Ensure compliance with industry regulations and updates
The medical industry passes through constant upgradation with time introducing revised coding and billing regulations. With that, your coding and billing staff also need to know the updated regulations. In-house billers usually lack first-hand industry knowledge and require institutions to hire new staff. It costs a lot of money. Additionally, the government and private insurance companies keep changing reimbursement rules and methods. Insurance companies rely on outsourcing companies for accurate bill submissions if you sign up for an outsourcing service. Outsourced companies comply with HIPAA regulations and insurance procedures.
4. Achieve security and compliance
Ensuring the safety of patient data is critical and requires careful handling. Medical billing outsourcing companies take care of this issue at the next level and ensure that your patient’s data is not lost or misused. They take care of the security of the healthcare records of the patient and eliminate data loss threats. On the other hand, maintaining an internal record may result in data breaches.
5. Help you focus on your fundamental responsibility
As a healthcare provider, your fundamental responsibility is to care for your patients. Complications and complexities of the in-house billing process hinder this responsibility and affect your professional healthcare services. Outsourcing revenue cycle management, medical billing, and coding services relieves the worries of the in-house billing process and allows you to concentrate exclusively on your profession. It also increases patient satisfaction. A satisfied patient becomes your ambassador for spreading positive word of mouth about your professional services. It helps you grow your business organically.
6. Enhances revenue for the healthcare provider
Denied claims cost practitioners a lot each year. Outsourcing medical billing companies take this responsibility and prevent revenue leakage ensuring that the client receives more money and loses little. Outsourced billing companies have better EHR systems and expert medical billing services which decrease the possibility of errors that lead to decreased rejected claims and keep unpaid claims in the system until they are paid. This practice ensures continued revenue flow for the practitioner.
7. Reduced the barrage of calls
Doctors’ offices receive calls all day. Most of them are billing inquiries. Signing up for an outsourcing billing company can reduce this number of calls to a substantial extent as billing inquiries are directed directly to the medical billing team. It gives the medical staff the freedom to cater to the needs of the patients at the institute. It also hands over billing-related problems to an outsourcing company.
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