As patient volumes return back to normal, physician practices all over the U.S. are struggling with a new challenge; staff shortage. Acute shortage of healthcare professionals and high staff turnover rates are impacting the ability of physicians to provide quality medical care and receive reimbursement. This trend is unsustainable and can lead to financial instability for independent physician practices.
As small and medium-scale practices are finding it difficult to invest in regular training of medical billing staff and carry out billing and coding audits to improve efficiency and accuracy of administrative functions that are critical in the revenue optimization context, practice managers and physicians are looking for alternatives to in-house billing and coding teams that are not only accurate but also cost-effective.
Therefore, to address concerns about outsourcing medical billing functions at physician practices, we shall discuss the top four advantages of partnering with a physician billing services company.
~Physician billing services help reduce operating costs for medical practices
Employing in-house medical billing and coding teams is expensive, and often, not as efficient. Healthcare facilities have to incur expenses on salaries, medical benefits and related allowances. These costs can be avoided by partnering with a reputed physician billing service.
Besides cost-savings, another advantage of outsourcing physician billing services is the improved medical billing accuracy. Medical billing companies, due to the nature of their work, are required to hire certified professional medical billers and coders and invest in regular training to eliminate any knowledge gaps that may affect the accuracy of their billing functions. Physician practices can benefit directly from this by leveraging the resources of a trusted physician billing company.
~Physician billing services help shorten billing cycles
Greater accuracy of submitted claims helps reduce claim denials, which in turn helps shorten the billing cycle (the number of days from delivering medical care to receiving reimbursement). A shorter billing cycle has several advantages for a medical practice including quick recovery of costs incurred in providing medical care.
~Customizable reporting by physician billing services
Physician billing services provide various types of reports to their clients to keep them updated about services and outcomes. Different physician practices may have different requirements which can require flexibility in reporting. Professional billing services offer this required flexibility by customizing reports as per the clients’ needs.
~Physician billing services help improve first-pass rate for insurance claims
Besides improving billing and coding accuracy, an indirect advantage of leveraging the services of certified medical billing staff of medical billing services is the improvement in the first-pass rate of reimbursement claims. A higher first-pass rate signifies reduction of claim denials, which helps avoid double-work on auditing and resubmitting denied claims, thus reducing operational costs.
For queries about our value-added offerings to optimize physician billing services, or to know more about our “cost per FTE” or the “30-day free transition” policy, please contact Sunknowledge Services Inc., a HIPAA-compliant healthcare revenue cycle management company, helping U.S. healthcare providers streamline revenue cycle tasks and plug revenue leakages for nearly two decades.
