Why Small Medical Practices Should Outsource Their Billing

Smaller medical practices often believe their size is what makes it reasonable to keep their medical billing in-house. The fact is that with ever changing regulations, rising costs, and fewer and smaller reimbursements, small medical practices are more likely to feel the burden. Add to that the ICD-10 coding transition and practices of all sizes will be doing what they can to be compliant. Small businesses may need more help because they cannot allocate the proper resources to this important part of their business operation.

There are a number of benefits to outsourcing your medical billing. Practices of all sizes should consider having a dedicated outside company manage the revenue cycle, but smaller medical offices in particular could benefit greatly from having their billing managed by professionals. Here is why.

Proper Coding – A good medical billing company makes every effort to stay up to date with coding changes, documentation requirements, billing patterns and every other change in the system that doctors’ and their staff’s simply cannot. Again, with ICD-10 change, it is more efficient to have a billing company worry about the transition than to arrange and pay for staff to get trained and then oversee the transition in October.

A Billing Team – Depending on the size of your staff, you may only be able to allocate a single employee, or maybe a part-timer, to handle the billing. If this person becomes sick, or distracted by other responsibilities, billing and revenue will suffer. A billing company has a team of people handling different tasks. Your practice would need an entire billing department to be as efficient as a dedicated billing company.

No Training – As mentioned before, keeping up with changes in the realm of billing takes training, and training takes time and money. ICD-10 alone will require even an expert billing manager to learn a whole new set of codes. Furthermore, training is ongoing and will always be a strain on your operation. Billing companies make it their business to train their agents. With a good billing company you can be assured that they are ready for anything that comes their way.

Fewer Denials – Expect fewer claim denials when a professional billing company is submitting your claims for you. Billing companies scrub every claim to make sure it goes out error free. This translates into faster payments to your office. If a mistake does happen they will quickly respond. When a denial does happen for whatever reason, you will have a team quick to appeal and track those unpaid claims.

Lower Cost – Of course, outsourcing your billing will cost your office. However, considering the relief to payroll and training, fewer denials, and higher collection rates, outsourcing your billing is a financially sound approach.

ProMD Medical Billing is happy to help with your billing assessment needs so you can maximize profits and increase patient satisfaction. To learn more about how ProMD can make your practice run like a well-oiled machine, call 866-960-9558 or fill out our online form to request a billing assessment.

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