Medical billing software can be expensive, and you might be wondering whether or not it’s worth the price. This discussion will focus on some of the benefits you would receive from software systems like this, so you can have some idea about how it could be an advantage to your company, and just how much it might save you in operational costs. For example, did you know that you can take advantage of volume discounts on clearinghouse services through outsourced billing? This can lead to tremendous cost savings that can positively impact your bottom line. Here are some of the most important points to remember about the benefits you’ll receive from using medical billing software in your claims system.
Preparing statements
The preparation of statements is a major cost in the medical billing process, and your billing software can take on this task for you, so it’s not a standalone function which you have to make special provision for, and for which you must allocate personnel. By generating your statements in volume, you’ll be able to reduce the expense of producing them piecemeal, and consolidate the whole process. You’ll also be able to leverage online payment methods, for instance text-to-pay and online bill-pay. You’ll have electronic statements as a copy of the originals, the software can be used for auto payment plans, and the whole system can be operated through interactive voice recognition.
Some examples of how outsourced medical billing can help you implement technology and save in this area include leveraging volume to reduce your statement expense, leveraging online payment methods including text to pay, online bill-pay, utilizing electronic statements and auto payment plans as well as interactive voice recognition.
EDI expenses
You’ll realize volume discounts on your claims when using a medical billing software system, as well as on your remittances and your 277 files. Every EDI transaction might only be costing you pennies, but when you add them all up, they total quite a few dollars. By having an outsourced vendor to manage these transactions, you’ll pile up discounts when you have a high volume of transactions. And just think of how the reduction of rejections and those discounts will add up over an extended period of time, like over a year.
EFT’s and payment processing
You probably have several staff members tied up currently who are responsible for handling electronic funds transfers, as well as payment processing. This can be a tedious task, and when you outsource it to an external vendor, you can free up those in-house employees to perform more value-added functions within the company. You can then work with your outsourcing vendor to setup a completely electronic system which processes all transactions without human interaction. That will save you a considerable amount of time and staffing cost because it won’t need to be performed by any of your own employees.
Optimizing medical billing software
When you purchase a billing software package, it probably will not be optimized for efficiency right out of the box, especially since many software systems are packaged with an Electronic Health Records feature that allows you to take advantage of both. An outsourcing vendor will use efficiency tools such as PM software which they own to accomplish this optimization, or they will make use of other specialized software to interface with your system, so that any resulting savings can be passed on to you. This will allow you to get the absolute most out of your medical billing software package, because it has been configured so as to synchronize with your company’s specific practices.
Technology expertise
If you don’t have any IT or technical people in-house, then you probably won’t be able to get the most out of your medical billing software. Like all other software packages, medical billing software will always have updates and new releases which have to be applied, some of which will be critical (for instance those related to security), and all of which should be applied at the earliest opportunity. With no one on your staff who is capable of working effectively with your vendors and managing those updates, chances are you’ll be losing some significant benefits, and that will eventually be expressed in terms of dollars. If you work with an outsourcing agency to manage your medical billing software, you won’t have to worry about timely updates, because they’ll all be done for you.
Billing
One last area of savings you’ll realize when working with an outsourcing vendor who manages your medical billing software, is the volume discounts on clearinghouse services which will accrue to you. Medical clearinghouses can be extremely useful in the claims filing process, because they can clean up your claims before submitting them, and that will save you all kinds of time on rejections and claim denials. Your billing will be much more efficient with fewer denials, and that will promote more consistent cash flow.
Conclusion
Virtually all healthcare facilities would benefit greatly by using medical billing software, especially when purchasing software which is adequate without being over-blown for your company. You may not need a package with all the bells and whistles, so if you can stick to a good, functional software system, it should definitely provide value for your investment. The benefits and the savings you realize from a worthwhile medical billing software system will soon pay for itself, and you’ll be quite glad you made the investment.
