The average patient who walks into a hospital, clinic, or private doctor’s office probably doesn’t think very much about how that building stays open. They don’t think about that medical entity’s complexity or what it takes to keep it running smoothly. Whoever runs the facility, though, probably thinks about little else.
They need to worry about new employee onboarding. They must think about getting the latest medical devices that patients will expect. They also might need to consider which health insurance providers they can accept, prescription services, appointment scheduling, and many other typical medical facility aspects.
A medical building is likely to embrace any chance it has to stay in business and run as smoothly as possible. That is probably why so many of them are turning to medical billing companies these days.
Let’s look at what medical billing companies are and why they make things so much easier for various healthcare business entities.
What Exactly is a Medical Billing Company?
Some people also refer to medical billing services as physician billing services. Whichever term you prefer, the idea is that there’s a separate entity working with a hospital, clinic, private specialty practice, and so forth.
This company employs specially trained staff members. They know about individual payers. They can work within a facility’s specific policies. They usually try to extract a higher payment level in a shorter period.
This does not mean that medical facilities which utilize billing companies charge the patients more. They’re generally trying to extract more money from insurance providers.
They might pursue delinquent accounts and follow up on rejected claims to see what went wrong. This sort of thing definitely happens a lot. Without a medical billing company on their side, it might take a facility’s staff multiple hours every day trying to track down claims that appear to have fallen through the cracks.
What Else Can They Do?
This is not a medical billing company’s only purpose, though. They can act as a go-between with health insurance providers and clinics or hospitals, but they can also streamline the claim submission process itself. If the submission process is easier and more transparent, there are fewer rejected claims.
A medical billing company might work with various health insurance providers to process payments.
They can institute follow-up measures to determine why a company rejected a claim, and then they’ll contact the patient to let them know what’s happening. Patients often appreciate this because then they’re not left waiting for days or weeks before receiving a bill that’s much larger than they anticipated.
Printing and mailing patient statements is one more thing a medical billing company might do. This is something that a clinic or hospital might have handled in the past, and the staff is probably glad they’re not responsible for this chore any longer.
Practice Management
Practice management is another area where medical billing companies often help healthcare entities. Just because someone is a brilliant doctor doesn’t mean they’re great at running a business. There are all the responsibilities we mentioned earlier, and the more successful a doctor’s office becomes, the more there is to do.
A hospital or clinic administrator, or whoever else is in charge of a medical facility, can meet with
medical billing company experts. They can talk to the administrator about how to save money. When these facilities reduce overhead, they can pass those savings on to you, the patient.
They will help the admin compare their revenue stream to recognized industry benchmarks. If they’re lagging in any area, they can instruct them on how they might correct that.
They usually call this a financial health assessment. Some medical facilities are in danger of going under before they bring in a medical billing company to help them.
They will set up analysis and reporting features that are easy for the admin to understand, even if this is not their expertise area. Once they identify any redundancies or waste areas, it’s much easier to cut costs and even expand if the medical facility wants to.
The medical billing company wants to partner with medical entities so that revenue increases and the business grows, but those entities never sacrifice patient care in the process. They often have highly customizable software suites that the clinic or hospital’s staff can learn how to use with little effort.
It is easy to see why these companies are doing so well and why so many medical entities partner with them.