Are You Getting the Most from Your Billing Department?

In simple terms, medical billing is the process by which healthcare providers get paid for the work that they do. The responsibility of a practice’s medical billers is to submit and follow up on claims made to health insurance companies to ensure that the practice is reimbursed for the work that providers have already performed. It might seem like a straightforward process, but in fact, knowledgeable and skilled medical billers are invaluable assets to physicians because they can optimize revenue performance so that practices receive the maximum amount of reimbursement possible for their services. Do you know how well your billing staff is serving your practice? Most physicians would probably guess that their billing staff is doing “alright,” but the only way to really gain insight into your billers’ performance is to consider insurance A/R aging report data.¹ If your staff’s aging reports are looking less than stellar, it may be a good idea to consider switching from self-billing to a third-party Revenue Cycle Management (RCM)/billing service.

What Do Billers Actually Do?

The basic workflow of a biller in a medical practice involves trying to recoup A/R by correctly submitting claims to insurance companies while following all necessary rules and regulations. A biller must assemble and respond to all data concerning each bill, including charge entry, claims transmission, payment posting, insurance follow-up, and patient follow-up. Billers must communicate with practitioners, understand how to read medical records, and be familiar with CPT®, HCPCS Level II, and ICD-10-CM codes to be successful. With such a great deal of information to track, a billing department’s activities are limited by the number of employees on staff. Of course, more employees might lead to a more effective billing staff, but at a significant cost—an average AAPC certified medical biller’s salary is over $61,000 per year.² Third-party RCM/billing services may offer the most lucrative solution for practices seeking to optimize revenues from billing. The average cost for an RCM service is under 10% of collections. ChartLogic’s service costs a mere 4-8% of collections. Third-party billers specialize in reducing A/R, following up with claims, and reducing claim denials to ensure that physicians aren’t losing real money in the billing process. ChartLogic’s billing service utilizes cutting-edge technology and staff expertise to improve your billing performance without increasing costs, saving you money to invest in better patient care.

No More Out Of Control A/R

Keeping a watchful eye on aging A/R is crucial to success in billing because the older bills get, the more difficult and costly their collection becomes. Increasing numbers of patients insured through high-deductible care plans and growing financial responsibility of individual patients for medical care have made the challenge to collect A/R even more difficult in recent years. RCM/billing services like ChartLogic’s can reduce the strain of paperwork on your practice by taking care of billing and collections so you can focus on quality care for your patients. ChartLogic’s Medical Billing Services create untapped efficiencies in the billing process that allow physicians to get more out of billing than ever before. To learn more about the benefits of RCM/billing services and to find out how ChartLogic can take billing off your hands, watch our RCM video or request a demo today.

1. “How Is Your In-House Medical Billing Department Doing?” Capture Billing. http://www.capturebilling.com/how-is-your-medical-billing-department-doing/. Accessed 9/5/17.
2. “2015 Salary Survey: Credentials Tip the Scale.” AAPC. https://www.aapc.com/blog/33226-2015-salary-survey-credentials-tip-the-scale/. Accessed 9/5/17.