Your healthcare organization will only be paid if you submit medical claims with the correct medical coding. Medical coding can be time-consuming and costly when performed in-house. Due to these challenges, many practices are considering outsourcing medical billing and coding.
Outsourcing your coding can help you improve the accuracy, speed, and consistency of medical billing and coding. This strategy has many advantages, making it a smart choice for most healthcare businesses.
Your healthcare organization will only be paid if you submit medical claims with the correct medical coding. Medical coding can be time-consuming and costly when performed in-house. Due to these challenges, many practices are considering outsourcing their medical billing.
What Is Remote or Outsourced Medical Coding?
Outsourcing medical coding means contracting your coding work to a third-party coding company. According to your agreement, the coding company will handle all or part of your medical coding needs. Third-party businesses are also responsible for ensuring their staff is up to date on the latest coding standards. You can hire programmers in your office, even though many medical coders are remote.
If they outsource their coding, the doctor will send the medical charts after completing a procedure to the organization. The coders email the charts to the practice after they have read the charts and finished the coding.
Outsourced medical coding companies can offer additional services, such as clinical documentation enhancement, research assistance, and evaluation of medical records, in addition to auditing.
In-House Billing vs. Outsourcing to Professionals
Most medical practices prefer to manage their own billing and claims processing. To handle billing internally, you will need billing software, hardware equipment, an office with furniture, additional administrative space, and improved back-end processing capabilities. You would also have to invest in marketing plans. Finding and hiring certified transcriptionists, coders and billers is the first step. You’ll have to start over if one quits. They will need to be taught to meet your special practice demands.
The front-of-house staff of your clinic is also responsible for entertaining patients as well as performing administrative duties. After that, the problems continue. The issues continue after that.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Medical Billing to Professionals
This is a list of reasons why you should outsource your medical billing and coding.
1. Improved Medical Billing and Coding Compliance
Medical billing and coding rules vary by state. ICD-10 is the framework but there are still unstated requirements for different payers. The experience of a coder is very useful in this situation. Medphine, an offshore service provider, invests in properly documenting medical billing and coding requirements. Some of these (LCDs) are guidelines for medical necessity and compliance with modifiers. By improving coding quality, you can avoid up-coding and downward-coding issues.
2. Reduced Billing Errors
Medical billers are certified healthcare professionals who have the experience to deal with a wide range of medical claims. Medical institutions that are reputable ensure their staff receives rigorous training and produces the required level of quality. Before sending claims to payers, skilled experts fix any billing errors and reduce the number of claims that are rejected.
3. Cost-Effectiveness
Outsourcing medical coding is often more cost-effective than hiring and maintaining a team of coders. Hiring medical coders is expensive, especially for those with advanced training or specialties. Outsourcing allows you to hire excellent developers for a lower cost.
According to the AAPC, a medical coder’s average annual salary is $52,411. Salary increases will be seen for certified coders, as well as those with more experience. The average yearly salary of a specialized coder with qualifications like Certified Professional Medical Auditors, Certified Documentation Specialist Outpatient, or Certified Physician Practice Management is approximately $64,000.
4. High Security and HIPAA Compliant
Outsourced revenue cycle service providers invest heavily in information security systems to ensure that their clients are operating in a safe environment. Information security management standards such as ISO27001 provide a set of strict controls to ensure client security. These controls may be more stringent than those you already have in place. When outsourcing, using service providers who have these controls will ensure that client data and PHI are handled with care.
5. Saves Office Resources
Outsourcing coding tasks can also save office resources. Outsourcing coding will reduce the demand for office supplies and papers. Saving office resources can produce additional savings.
Outsourcing medical coding has many other benefits, including increased productivity and reduced workload. The organization gains flexibility and resources are released to focus on core tasks. To take advantage of the benefits, companies must outsource billing operations to reputable firms that offer high-quality audits and reports that are error-free, at affordable rates.
6. Increase Your Revenue
Outsourcing medical billing and coding services to an outside provider can help hospitals and healthcare facilities save money and time, rather than purchasing the equipment and hiring staff. Hospitals can increase their income by reducing overhead costs. They will also receive payments and submit claims on time.
7. Consistent Quality and Accuracy
You can rest assured that when you choose a coding specialist like Medphine to work with, the services will be high quality and accurate. Our team is made up of highly skilled coders with years of experience in medical coding. We classify and audit over 3 million medical records for the Army, Navy, and Air Force each year, with accuracy rates as high as 95%.
A medical code outsourcing company can provide flexibility, so you can rest assured that the quality will remain the same even if your volume of records increases. You don’t need to worry about the accuracy of your coding if you reduce staffing or change coding guidelines.
8. Audits and Error Checks
Medical billing staff are trained to perform process audits to ensure accuracy at every stage of the billing cycle. Before coding, health records from the clinic will be checked to ensure they are complete and legible. This is done to make sure no information about patients or treatment plans are missed. After the coding process, a second audit is conducted to eliminate any remaining errors. The billing claim is then compared with the records to confirm that the bills are complete and accurate.
9. Improved Revenues Through Faster Claim Submissions and Audits
The billing process is executed in a thorough manner, which makes it easier to generate claims. medical billing has consistently shown that the automation, periodic evaluation, and thorough cleaning of the process to ensure compliance with payor standards have a minimal impact on claim denials. Clean claims can help increase revenue and accelerate account receivables.
10. The Expert Workforce
Medical billing companies hire certified coders who have sufficient experience working with healthcare facilities, insurance payers, and other professionals to understand the details of the process. Outsourcing the Medical Billing Process allows them to continue with the procedure, without having to spend time clarifying medical charts, disease conditions, or terminology. Experience allows you to identify the right circumstances and techniques for capturing the bills so that you do not lose track of any money you paid after treatment.
11. Transparency
You can expect your chosen coding company to provide you with detailed records and summaries of performance regarding medical billing. These reports may be sent to you automatically or upon request. This gives you a great deal of insight into how your billing and coding work, making it easy to understand the way your practice operates. These insights can be obtained without spending time on meticulous record-keeping or managing staff. This benefit should be considered when you decide whether to hire medical coding experts or outsource them.
12. Gaining Total Control
Many hospitals are known for their better control of administrative processes and billing systems. Medical coding and billing services can help healthcare facilities better manage their finances. The outsourcing provider, as well as the workers who are qualified to perform all duties, deserve praise.
This post was written by Physicians Choice Medical Billing, LLC. Physicians Choice Medical Billing, LLC has been providing exceptional, and comprehensive Full-Service Practice Management including medical billing and coding companies, revenue cycle management, credentialing and consulting services to our clients. Whether you are a new startup or an established medical group, PC has the experience and dedication to make your practice a financial success. The staff bring multiple years of experience and dedication. Fingerprinting in Tampa and Fingerprinting in St Pete with Physicians Choice provides the highest quality, professional digital Live Scan fingerprints in a comfortable professional office atmosphere. Physicians Choice offers both individual and corporate account service.
