Five reasons to embrace healthcare revenue cycle management outsourcing
When you’ve always used an in-house process for revenue cycle management, outsourcing it can seem overwhelming. How do know you whether you can trust the vendor to submit claims correctly and on time? One mistake could cost your medical practice thousands of dollars. It could also cost you your reputation and patient loyalty. However, outsourcing doesn’t need to be the scary endeavor you might have conjured up in your mind. Instead, here are five reasons why medical practices should embrace medical billing outsourcing to maximize profitability and secure a bright financial future.
1. You maintain control of your finances. Despite long-standing myths, outsourcing your medical billing is not synonymous with relinquishing control. In fact, a reputable healthcare revenue cycle outsourcing vendor provides medical practices with dashboards and reports that include information about charges, aging accounts receivable, rejections, errors, unposted insurance payments, unposted patient payments, and more. You’ll likely feel more in control because you’ve got real-time data you can use to drive process improvement.
2. You get paid more, and faster. With a revenue cycle management outsource partner, medical practices ensure a compliant revenue cycle process from the moment patients schedule an appointment and provide their demographic and insurance information to the moment they receive a bill—and everything in between. This includes verifying eligibility, assigning medical codes, scrubbing and submitting claims, posting insurance payments, and following up with denials. Reputable vendors employ highly skilled medical coders and billers who receive ongoing education on ever-evolving regulations and payer requirements. By streamlining workflows and leveraging operational best practices, you get paid what you deserve—and you receive those payments in a timely fashion, helping ensure optimal cashflow.
3. You weather staffing fluctuations with ease. As many medical practices continue to face healthcare staffing shortages, working with a medical billing outsource partner can bring significant peace of mind. Why? Your partner absorbs the stress and anxiety associated with managing and maintaining billing staff. It takes on the responsibilities associated with recruiting, onboarding, training, and retaining staff so you can focus on providing high-quality patient care. This is incredibly important during a time when the patient experience—both clinical and financial—matters more than ever before.
4. You benefit from big picture insights. Because most healthcare revenue cycle outsourcing vendors work with medical practices of all specialties and sizes in a variety of geographic locations, they have valuable big picture insights that are impossible to gain with the myopic view that most practices possess. For example, the vendor might have developed a winning strategy for appealing certain types of denials after having worked with various specialty practices such as orthopedics or OB/GYN. Or perhaps it noticed a pattern of denials across all dermatology practices and could thus raise awareness to promote proactive compliance. A healthcare revenue cycle management outsourcing partner can strengthen your practice based on its vast and diverse experience.
5. You gain a resource. Healthcare revenue cycle management outsourcing isn’t about what you’ll lose. It’s about what you’ll gain—that is, a partner dedicated to helping your medical practice succeed. This partner will take an interest in your revenue cycle management goals and help you identify and address any barriers that might stand in the way. Your vendor can answer questions about underpayments, provide feedback to improve physician documentation, or help you drill down into your data to identify root causes of claim denials. It’s all in the spirit of helping your medical practice remain financially viable.
Conclusion
Whether you are an independent physician practice, health system, state/federal entity, Accountable Care Organization, or medical home, outsourcing your medical billing and collections doesn’t need to be the scary, fear-filled endeavor it is sometimes made out to be. There are many reasons why revenue cycle management outsourcing can actually strengthen your practice. Don’t fear change—embrace it. Learn how edgeMED can help and be sure to check the Healthy Snacks blog for more expert insights, best practices and industry trends.
