The Bottom Line On Medical Billing and Why It’s So Important

WHAT IS MEDICAL BILLING, AND WHY DO YOU NEED A REPUTABLE MEDICAL BILLING SERVICE PROVIDER?

Visiting your family doctor is easy: you go in, get a routine checkup, provide them with your health insurance details, and you’re done. But while it may be simple for you, it can be quite the opposite on the other end.

The job isn’t quite easy for healthcare providers – this includes a family doctor, physician, therapist, or even the doctor you saw during a quick emergency room visit.
They not only have to focus on providing the best care to the patient, but they also have to deal with all the administrative and financial tasks at the backend. This is where medical billing companies can make your life much easier. Let’s see how.

WHAT ARE MEDICAL BILLING SERVICES?

The healthcare system is more complex than most people think; it goes beyond the doctor and their patient. If we try and narrow down the main parties and processes involved in medical billing, the list would include the healthcare provider, the patient, and the bill payer, which is usually an insurance company. PCS Revenue Cycle Management is here for all your medical billing needs.

WHY DO YOU NEED MEDICAL BILLING SERVICES?

Patients who visit a healthcare provider receive care and treatment for whatever condition or problem they face. In return for that care and treatment, the healthcare provider requires compensation.

Now, if the patient paid for the services rendered right there, it’s relatively easier for the healthcare provider to deal with it and be done with the entire thing. The only thing they might have to do in addition to processing the payment enters the treatment details into the patient’s records so they can be quickly tracked later if needed.

However, these days, many people have extensive medical coverage in the form of health insurance. This includes consumer-driven health plans and insurance under managed care organizations, such as Healthcare Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). People with health insurance plans usually enter their insurance details and leave after receiving their treatment. After that, it’s up to the healthcare provider to verify the details, draw up the necessary paperwork with the right codes and claims, and run after those insurance companies so that they can get their compensation. It sounds pretty tiring, right? Along with all of this, the healthcare provider also has to focus on providing high-quality services to other patients.

Whether this healthcare provider belongs to a small or large organization, they need the right skills and knowledge to carry out the entire medical billing process. This can make their already tough job a lot harder.

A medical billing company that provides robust medical billing services can take this ordeal off a healthcare provider’s hands.

HOW DO MEDICAL BILLING SERVICES WORK?

Essentially, they take responsibility for a healthcare provider’s service’s entire ‘medical billing’ component. Medical billing services collect all the required information about the patient. This includes the patient’s history, details regarding their treatment, whether that treatment is covered under insurance, and other relevant information.

The medical billing company uses this information to draw a claim, which then goes to the insurance company. After that, the company conducts follow-ups with the insurance company – as well as the patient sometimes – until the healthcare provider receives their compensation. PCS Revenue Cycle Management is here for all your medical billing needs.

WHAT IS THE MEDICAL BILLING PROCESS?

The precise steps in the medical billing process differ according to the nature and extent of the service, the type of organization, and many other factors. However, generally, this is how the process goes:

• Registering the patient
• Confirming payment details
• Releasing the patient
• Drawing up the insurance claim
• Submitting the claim
• Managing claim adjudication
• Initiating payment collection and following up with the patient

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDICAL BILLING SERVICES

If you think employing medical billing services is an unnecessary expense and that you can manage your payment collections by yourself, you’re right about the latter; you could probably manage it yourself. However, medical billing services are far from unnecessary expenses. They prove to be quite beneficial in the long run and can significantly impact your revenue cycles.

The biggest benefit of hiring a medical billing company is that you get to take your mind off a secondary responsibility and focus on your primary job, i.e., providing the best care and treatment possible to your patients.

A doctor’s time is incredibly valuable and needs to be spent on the right tasks. With less on your plate, you can perform your job much better and, consequently, more efficiently. This, in turn, leads to more patients and more revenue.

Moreover, medical billing companies usually comprise trained and experienced individuals in this kind of work. Therefore, they can handle the billing process much faster, with reduced chances of error.

This ensures a smoother and quicker payment collection process, with claims getting accepted sooner and receivable periods growing shorter. Since less time and effort are spent on recovering payments from each patient, the per-patient cost drops as well, and there is an increase in profitability.

Furthermore, the patients feel more satisfied as their payment process is handled smoothly and immediately. So, they are inclined to come back to the same healthcare provider for any other medical concerns.

Bad debt percentages also tend to go down. Additionally, as a healthcare provider, you need only think about your patients and their welfare. The medical billing company can worry about any policy changes and regulations regarding billing and payment collections. They will also make sure every process is carried out correctly and legally.

CONCLUSION

A healthcare provider of any kind already has a stressful and busy job. On top of that, if they have to look over administrative tasks such as medical billing and patients’ payment collections, their focus can be diverted from patient care.

Therefore, we recommend contacting a medical billing company immediately, as these services are vital for healthcare providers.

PCS Revenue Cycle Management is here for all your medical billing needs. Please call or email us for a free consultation and/or quote for our outsourced billing services in all 50 states!