Outsourcing Medical Billing Is the New Normal to Minimize Claim Denials

by | November 20, 2020 | 7:04 am
Outsourcing Medical Billing to Minimize Claim Denials

Time is money. The complications of completing your DME’s medical billing can be horribly tedious and more overwhelming than the core of your DME business – improving patient outcomes. And then, upon submission, claims must be clean to even receive consideration. 

As an HME/DME provider, although a majority of your time must be spent on patient care, gruelling administrative chores and cumbersome everyday billing tasks can be overwhelming and distracting from providing the quality your patients deserve. Moreover, financial losses from the pandemic may have a lasting effect on DME providers, and outsourcing medical billing may be the best way to help your revenue cycle recover so that you can build resiliency and thrive in the new normal.

Problems faced by HMEs today

The pandemic created a lot of pressure for the HME/ DME industry, resulting in layoffs and furloughs. In addition, a large number of people working from home caused issues related to HIPAA compliance. This is where outsourcing medical billing can help your HME/DME business thrive in the new normal. Having a vetted, reliable medical billing partner can help streamline billing, improve billing efficiency, and reduce claim denials. Your net collection ratio is estimated to increase up to 90%. Here are some ways outsourcing medical billing can help improve your business processes:

Outsourcing Medical Billing Infographic

Patient Appointment Scheduling

The initial phase of the medical billing process requires collecting the patient’s information and setting up the patient account for billing. Patient scheduling is critical as a precursor to clearing claims.  The complexities of patient scheduling have multiplied in the new normal. Therefore, patient appointment scheduling by trained professionals can help improve revenue and maximize efficiency. Medical billing companies use technologically superior patient scheduling solutions, such as Appoint360, to take the stress off of patient scheduling, save time, increase productivity, and improve patient satisfaction

Patient Registration

Enrolling complete and accurate patient registration, by providing demographic and insurance information, is key to the success of your revenue cycle. Proper patient registration provides the groundwork for increased clean claims. Outsourcing offers you peace of mind for improved productivity, enhanced accuracy, and reduced denials, by ensuring that all information is entered into the system within 12 to 24 hours from the time of receipt.

Insurance Verification and Prior Authorization

Insurance verification is critical to ensure accurate and timely receipt of information, as well as prevent treatment delays or denials. Medical billing companies offer a team of preauthorization experts to track and monitor prior authorization rules and policies, in addition to comprehensive patient eligibility verification services. This ensures an accurate and timely determination of the patient’s eligibility, which helps the HME/ DME provide a clear view of the patient’s status, as well as submit clean claims. This contributes to an increase in collections, optimization of cash flow, and avoidance of claim rejection due to inaccurate or incomplete information.

Eliminate Errors

Experienced billing specialists are professionals and experts at what they do. This ensures that there are fewer errors than would occur had the tasks been handled in-house by a less experienced employee. Outsourcing not only addresses common staffing problems, such as high employee turnover, it also eliminates the overhead of hiring and training new staff. Moreover, since the medical billing company is completely focused on one task – facilitating claims submission and claims settlement– they can offer higher productivity and take the stress off your already exhausted and overworked staff.

Eliminate Staffing Bottlenecks

Staffing is a common concern of HME/DME organizations. Outsourcing to an experienced and expert medical billing company offers end-to-end solutions to all of your billing challenges. From ensuring correct patient registration, to verifying eligibility and following up with A/R, medical billing experts excel at reducing claim denials and increasing collection rates by up to 90%. Since medical billing outsourcing partners are heavily invested in the latest technology and compliance, you stay updated in the ever-evolving regulatory landscape. In addition, you will be able to leverage the latest in technology to help you stand out from the competition.

Medical Billing Partner to Greater Business Resilience 

As HME/ DMEs emerge from the impact of the pandemic, the need for a strategic medical billing partner is greater than ever. Ideally, the HME/ DME provider, or the medical practice staff, should be focused on the patient experience. Analytix Solutions works with DME and HME practices and businesses to identify and implement medical billing processes that can be streamlined and optimized. We offer a full range of medical billing services that can be combined to provide an end-to-end customizable solution.

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