9 Reasons Medical Practices Should Outsource Medical Billing
Medical practices are always looking for ways to save money and improve operational efficiency while delivering excellent patient care. Outsourcing medical billing is an often-over-looked path that enables practices to achieve these goals — and so much more.
Established in 2003, CPa Medical Billing was created as a customer service-oriented alternative to the big national billing companies. Founder and President Carmen Pascarella started the company because he found that many practices were unable to effectively manage their practice revenue and receivables. Nearly two decades later, we’re still helping medical practices achieve and exceed their financial goals.
In this article, we cover nine ways every medical practice can benefit from outsourcing their medical billing to a professional organization like CPa Medical Billing.
1. Eliminate Medical Billing Pain Points
There are thousands of medical billing codes along with ever-changing policies and procedures pushed down by insurance payors. Outsourcing medical billing to a dedicated partner saves your facility a significant amount of time and effort. It also alleviates frustration for your staff who likely have other important tasks on their plates. A professional medical billing services company has experts who stay current with all the ins and outs and get the job done on your behalf every single day.
2. Reduce Costly Errors
Even the most professional business environments are susceptible to mistakes. When your staff’s attention is focused on patient care, answering patient calls, growing the medical practice, etc., billing or coding errors are bound to happen. However, these costly slip-ups can be significantly reduced by outsourcing medical billing.
A professional medical billing company ensures patient claims undergo a thorough and efficient submission process using best practice workflows. Prior to submission, medical claims are optimized for maximum reimbursement. Denials and appeals are worked daily. And, if mistakes do happen, they are immediately corrected and communicated to the entire medical practice staff to eliminate compounding mistakes.
All of this translates into the highest paid reimbursements at the fastest collection time possible and, ultimately, more money for your practice.
3. Speed Up Collections
A professional medical billing company includes a team of certified coders who have the training to scrub claims before sending them off to insurance payors. This leads to fast claims processing, less rejections and, subsequently, a reduction in your outstanding A/R days.
The goal is to have your outstanding days in A/R less than 30 days. Reducing your outstanding A/R days equates to more reliable and predictable cash flow.
4. Enhance Accountability and Leave Mediocre Work Behind
Many medical practices are forgiving of mediocre results in medical billing because their staff is pulled in various directions. With an experienced medical billing company, there are no interruptions and, therefore, no excuses to not get the job done right. The only goal is collecting the highest amount of reimbursements in the shortest amount of time possible. One account manager is your single point of contact and accepts 100% accountability for achieving optimal results.
5. Improve Patient Experience
When outsourcing medical billing, your staff doesn’t have to worry about the nitty gritty insurance and billing details. Instead, they can focus on delivering the best patient care and customer service. Imagine what they’ll achieve with more time dedicated to patient scheduling, creating a welcoming environment, patient follow-ups, satisfaction surveys, etc.
Pivoting their attention away from medical billing and toward these activities undoubtedly will result in an improved patient experience.
6. Dodge Staffing Shortages, Turnover and Training
For the last few years, staffing shortages have plagued the entire healthcare industry. When you’re down just one or two team members, it places a heavy burden on everyone else.
By outsourcing medical billing, you no longer need to worry about staffing, hiring, firing, benefits, schedules, training, etc.
7. Maximize Clinical Space
By outsourcing medical billing, you gain back space that was dedicated to the billing department. You can repurpose the area for revenue generating activities such as additional exam rooms or an on-site lab.
Converting space to revenue generating space can potentially generate hundreds of thousands in additional profit for your practice.
8. Reduce Billing Overhead
Partnering with a medical billing company decreases your overhead by changing your cost structure from a fixed departmental expense to a variable cost that’s directly tied to the collection of net receipts.
Having medical billing-related costs tied to the results of net collections makes sense because the billing fees are correlated to collections results (how quickly and how much gets collected on a monthly basis). When patient visits and reimbursements are down, your medical billing fees are down. When visits and reimbursements are up, the fees are higher, but so are the results.
Would you rather pay staffing on pure results or pay regardless of the bottom line results?
9. Boost Your Bottom Line
A strong medical billing partner has the ability to increase your revenue in a couple of ways. First off, they optimize your coding and billing workflows. Timely, clean claim submissions pave the way for maximum reimbursements in the shortest period of time. Denied claims aren’t ignored. They are corrected and resubmitted daily. Claims requiring appeals are also worked daily. All of this leads to greater cash flow and increased revenue.
While your in-house team is 100% dedicated to providing superior patient care and customer service, your medical billing company is 100% dedicated to achieving maximum performance within your revenue cycle. It’s the best of both worlds. Typically, outsourced medical billing companies claim that they are 5-10% better at collecting receipts than in-house billing teams. At CPa Medical Billing, our health center clients have averaged an increase of 45% in their net receipts while most of our private medical practice clients realize increases ranging from 10-20%.
Is Outsourcing Your Billing the Right Choice for Your Medical Practice?
Outsourcing medical billing may be the best decision you make this year. As with any major consideration, it’s important to investigate prospective solutions and partners. That’s why CPa Medical Billing has created The Ultimate Guide to Outsourcing Medical Billing.
The comprehensive guide is designed to help medical practice decision makers understand if outsourcing medical billing is right for them, and if so, what benefits to expect, how to identify the right partner and so much more.
Contact CPa Medical Billing
CPa Medical Billing (CPaMB) has elevated the financial health of private practices, health centers, and medical groups across the U.S. Our highly trained, highly experienced medical billing specialists are all U.S. based and operate together from one office. Our engagements are flexible and tailored to your specific needs.
If you have questions or would like to contact our team, please call 203-678-9616 or visit https://cpamedicalbilling.com/contact-us/.