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As a medical practitioner, your role is to offer the best medical service to your patients. Besides this being a good way of helping humanity, your medical profession is your business. Therefore, you must get paid and have a good system for management of the billing systems. An in-house billing system could be cheap but, you will have to put in a lot of time in managing your system. That, and other disadvantages makes a third party medical billing services system viable. Before choosing a medical billing service provider, consider the following factors:
1. What services are provided?
There are no two medical billing systems or services that are similar. As you look out for different service providers, go through their list of services and get explanations for each. One solution may offer accounts payable analysis services while others may scrutinize claims made by clients and follow up with insurance companies. Such services are vital and a good service provider offers all or most of these services at reasonable rates.
2. The cost
How much will you pay for the services? This is an important question that will be best answered after you have gone through your finances and your budget. There are specific details that will increase the cost of the service.
The best source of information on service prices is websites and sales representatives. Unfortunately, the prices you will get from these sources are mere estimates. You should also keep in mind the amount of money that will be charges by the service providers. This charge is mostly a percentage. Find out this value.
The overall cost of the billing services may include clearing house payments and co-pays made by your staff. Get clarifications on these charges to know the exact cost of the billing services.
3. Support services
Most medical billing service providers offer support services. However, you shouldn’t ignore this fact. Confirm that the billing service is communicative. The service provider should engage you at all times and never make decision without your knowledge. This should be done however transparent the software solution is.
4. Level of engagement with your patients
The medical billing system engages the service provider, the patient and yourself. Depending on your preference, go the medical billing system should engage with the patients. The extent of the engagement is dependent on you and your practice.
5. Damage control
Do not expect to find a medical billing system that hasn’t made any mistakes. And, don’t be lied to. They all make mistakes. You will find this information from previous and current clients.
A preferred medical billing service shows that they are experienced in handling mistakes and cases in your field of practice. Besides the revenue cycle, the billing service provider should have the capacity to handle the resultant legal implications.
In conclusion, choosing a medical billing service is a tough call because it is the system that will run the entire billing process. The process involves insurance verification, entry of patients demographics, entry of charges, submission of claims, posting payments, follow ups, denial management and finally, reporting. The selected provider should perform all these services professionally.
Author Bio: Katherine Kendrick is a medical billing service provider. She runs her own firm and her services are preferred by many professionals in the medical field. Besides work, she plays chess, loves reading and swimming. Learn more about her work on her LinkedIn profile.