The
state of Pennsylvania is one of the richest economies in America, with a gross
state product (GSP) of over $800 billion. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate
to everyone paying their bills, and if you are a small medical practice you are
probably more aware than many of this.
This is one of the reasons why companies
like Accumed Billing In
Pennsylvania have seen increasing growth. Allowing
smaller practices to have the same efficiency and access to cashflow that can
be found in larger medical centers and hospitals is going to benefit the entire
area, not simply the practice itself.
What Is A Medical Billing Service?
Generally medical practices are relying
on health insurance companies to payout for a patient’s medical procedures. A
Medical billing service is able to take care of this process, ensuring that all
claims are submitted correctly, chasing up with the health insurance companies
if payment hasn’t been received, and looking into other options if a payment
for service has been declined by an insurance company.
In larger organizations this may be done
by an entire billing team, while in medium sized medical practices there will
often only be one person fulfilling the entire accounts receivable duties.
However, in smaller medical services this is unfortunately an area that is
simply added on to a general administration or accounts role.
Why Is Medical Billing Not An Admin
Role?
Although the vast majority of medical
receptionists, practice managers and medical administration staff are talented
people who have a diverse range of skills, accounts receivable within the
American healthcare system is a very specialist role. Beyond normal debt
collection, invoicing and processing, the additional complication of dealing
with health insurance companies, making sure that their processes have been
correctly followed in order for the insurance company to payout on procedures
can often involve in-depth knowledge of the insurance industry, not just
generalist knowledge of accounts processes or medical centers.
We Can’t Afford A Dedicated Accounts
Receivable Person
Pennsylvania is ranked as the 29th
healthiest state in America, so pretty middle of the road. Part of its success
is the high number of primary care physicians that people in the state have
access to. Another reason is that the majority of people in Pennsylvania has
medical insurance. https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Overall/state/PA
However, high levels of pollution in the
state mean correlate with the increased health issues that Pennsylvania’s have.
What this all means is that you have a
large population with health insurance who also is likely to have ongoing
illnesses caused by environmental conditions, asthma, heart conditions,
sleeping issues, respiratory problems and so on. All of this is going to
involve the complicated process of medical billing through the health insurance
systems.
Although many small and medium sized
medical practices feel that they do not yet have the financial turnover to pay
for a permanent fulltime accounts’ receivable role, without someone managing
this area efficiently your practice profit and income won’t reach anywhere near
the full potential.
So, what many practices are doing is to
outsource the role. With different fee structures your practice is able to
ensure that your medical billing is done accurately, and on time, while you do
not need to worry about staffing the role.
Outsourcing also means that you are
working instantly with someone who is highly trained in the billing software
that you use, so there is not the usual downtime most practices experience when
they hire a new person into the role. There is no training period, and no
learning curve.
If you outsource your medical billing to
a reputable company you are also likely to be working with someone, or a team
of people, who not only know the job, and how the system works, but probably
have contacts within the insurance companies already (its complicated, see here),
so if there is a problem know exactly who to call to have it resolved quickly.
We Don’t Have A Medical Billing System
For new medical centers one of the
biggest bonuses to using a professional medical billing company is that they
can help get you set up with software packages that will work for your center
and help you learn to use it if needed.
Because the people employed by the
company are used to working with a range of different systems they will be able
to work on anything that you have, but they will also not have an agenda when
they make a recommendation about what system might work best for you.
