Using a Professional Medical Billing Company: 7 Ways to Retain Control of Your Practice

Outsourcing to a professional medical billing companypractices feel this gives away too much responsibility.
to manage your practice's reimbursements can beAnother option is to set up a lock box at a local bank.
both a blessing and a curse. In most cases it will saveLock boxes ensure an added sense of security as all
you significantly in payroll, staff time, and administrationmail is received, opened and sorted by bank personnel
headaches, but it can also feel like you're giving up all- but they add often unnecessary steps and time to
control of your revenue. As practices consider theirthe process. The most common option for greater
options for managing medical billing, it's important theycontrol over your payments would be to have all
find (and maintain) a comfortable sense of control overreimbursements sent directly to the practice. The
operations. Here are a few mechanisms of controlmedical billing company can continue to update A/R
your medical billing company should offer to show youbased on copies of EOBs if necessary, but you never
that the work is getting done efficiently and effectively.have to worry about misplaced or misdirected checks
if you are receiving them directly.Patient Information
While the EMR revolution is building, many practices
Consistent reportingare still moving around enormous amounts of paper. If
Consistent reports should be standard for any medicalyou are among these, you will need to communicate
billing company and are your foundation for controlyour patient information to the medical billing company
over practice revenues. They should be provided atin such a way that you retain copies or originals of
least once a month and include tracking ofencounter documents. Typically, encounter information
transactions, A/R, managed care and capitationis sent via fax or mail mail. If mailing patient encounter
utilization, and individual provider reports for practicesinformation to your medical billing company, consider
with multiple doctors. Any medical billing companyretaining the originals and sending only copies. Though
worth your time should also be able to respond torare, there is always the possibility that it might get lost
reasonable requests for customizable reports as well.in the mail, or the medical billing company could
Reports should be clearly designed to give you amisplace a record. Also, with a more advanced
concise understanding of the successes andmedical billing company you will find scanning or imaging
shortcomings of your practice and medical billingof all documents that come into the office is not
company.Comparative Analysisuncommon - and they can usually send a monthly CD
Monthly and periodic reports are helpful in assessingback to your practice for an extra, electronic copy of
what has taken place over a given time frame, butpatient information.Access to Data
comparative reports will truly show the ebb and flowMore advanced medical billing companies can also
over the longer term. You will have a greateroffer practices access to data via VPN (Virtual
understanding of your practice and the performancePrivate Network) connection or via web portal. Such
of your medical billing company if you are able tosystems are capable of offering real-time, or
clearly see improvements to your cash flow over timenear-real-time, access to data and allow client
identify periods of lagging profitability. Make sure yourpractices to view everything almost as it happens -
medical billing company is able to furnish you withincluding daily reports, status of claims, patient balances,
comparative reports monthly, if not at least quarterly oretc. Keep in mind that such services do not come
annually.Performance Metricsinexpensively; they require regular maintenance by
Performance metrics will often be built into a medicalvery savvy staff.Contract Terms
billing services contract, but you should have aFinally, if your billing service does not provide you with
mechanism in place for measurement. An example ofa way out of their contract - be it with 30, 60 or 90
a solid performance metric would be: 98% of all claimsdays notice - then think about the relationship carefully.
submitted to the carrier within 48 hours of receipt. ThisAre you getting locked into something you might not
is an attainable measurement in most cases, andbe satisfied with just a month down the road? Your
almost all medical billing software packages can reportmedical billing company should have an incentive to
on submission date for comparison against the date ofkeep you happy as a client. The service provider
service. Periodic spot checks of performance metricswhose willing to give you the "out option" with short
will give practices further control over day to daynotice is most likely more confident of their services
operations and tasks - and not just monthly trendsthan the one seeking to tie you down for six months
from the periodic reports.Reimbursements Sent to theor a year.
PracticeFor more information about working with a medical
When working with a medical billing company, therebilling company while still maintaining control of your
are a number of ways in which payments can findreimbursements, visit Diversity Medical Billng Services.
their way to your checking account. First - not alwaysWe are offer an array of customizable medical claim
the number one choice for that heightened sense ofbilling solutions to practices and health care providers
control - payments can be sent directly to the medicalnationwide. You can also find additional Medical Billing
billing company. While it would be rare that a medicalArticles, Tools and Information in our medical billing
billing company would do something illegal with theknowledge center.
payment (and for very little long term benefit), some