Is Your Practice Ready to Outsource ENT Medical Billing?
As a result of so many changes facing the healthcare industry in recent years, in particular billing and coding, ICD-10 coding transition and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many practices, clinics and hospitals have just become overwhelmed by the increase in work for their billing department. What’s worse is smaller practices that don’t have a billing department at all, but staff members who multitask between billing, reception and nursing duties. If your office is working at full speed, yet you still feel like you’re treading water, it might be time to think about outsourcing billing ENT services to a professional company that you can trust.
Is Outsourcing Right for Your ENT Practice?
While every practice has different reasons for wanting to explore the outsourcing of otolaryngology billing and coding, nearly every office considers it at least some point. Sometimes all it takes it working with a consultant to provide you with a fresh new perspective or perhaps some one-on-one training with staff to improve performance, but in other cases, choosing to outsource ENT billing is the smartest step to take. To find out whether or not your ENT billing and coding could be improved through outsourcing resources, take a look at the top reasons why practices, clinics and hospitals outsource this valuable service to see how your office compares.
- DENIED CLAIMS – Does your office get a lot of denied claims? Studies show that the time that a claim spends in the accounts receivable department and the number of claims that get denied are the two figures that can let you know how effective your ENT billing and coding are at present. For example, if 20 percent or more of your claims sit in your accounts receivable office for more than 120 days, you need to make a change. On the other hand, if you have a denied claim rate of 10 percent or more, your will want to hire a consultant and get some training for your staff right away. In the mean time, choosing to outsource ENT billing to improve cash flow might be a good temporary solution just to get things rolling again while training occurs.
- NOT ENOUGH STAFF – If you have a small staff at your local ENT practice or if you are just starting out and don’t have enough funds to hire more personnel, you might be a good candidate for outsourcing billing and ENT services. In some cases it may even be more cost-effective to outsource these services instead of hiring a new part-time or full-time staff member. Consider the costs for ENT billing and coding through a professional service and the costs associated with hiring new staff, paying salaries, benefits, insurance and getting a new workstation setup for billing.
- TIME MANAGEMENT – Let’s face it, the time it takes to do all of the new coding and billing for ICD-10 can be really complicated. In fact, even after appropriate training, there is still a learning curve that is going to take most billing staff more than a few months to overcome. The complexity of the requirements for otolaryngology billing and coding can make having in-house billing staff counter-productive. Consider outsourcing billing and ENT services to speed up billing and enjoy a little more consistency with regard to cash flow.
- TECHNOLOGY – While we already mentioned that doing ENT billing and coding in-house means having a workstation set up for your office staff to use for this purpose, it is also important to know that you need to stay on top of all the latest technology to stay compliant. Not only were upgrades required for ICD-10, but software and operating system upgrades were required recently as well for security purposes in order to remain compliant with HIPAA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability of Act (HIPAA) demands protection from unauthorized access to Protected Health Information (PHI). For some practices, the cost of hiring someone to upgrade some of this technology can seem counter-productive.
Why Choose MD Pro Solutions
If you are thinking about the options available to you to outsource ENT billing services, consider MD Pro Solutions. Our service was founded by a group of medical practitioners and practice administrators who specialize in otolaryngology or Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) practices. We provide a wide variety of education, training, support and services to ENT practices all across the country. Give us a call at 508-946-1665 to learn more about our options for outsourcing ENT billing and coding or to get a FREE estimate on our services.