5 Reasons You Should Outsource Medical Billing for Your Practice
Running a medical or therapy practice is an enormous labor of love as you serve your clients and patients. And it’s unlikely that billing insurance companies for your work is the part you love. Whether your practice is for profit or not, it’s wise to outsource medical billing for many reasons.
If you already know that it’s time for outsourced billing services, let’s connect. The expert team at Doug Fir Billing is eager to help so that you can spend time serving your patients. Reach out to get on our schedule.
And if you’re unsure about how it works to outsource medical billing, read on for more information.
In-House vs. Outsourced Billing
To start, let’s explain how an outsourced medical biller works for your practice.
When you do all of your medical billing in-house, you or an employee are responsible for this job. In many cases, this role falls to an office manager or receptionist who may or may not have experience and training. Or it goes to you, the care provider, who likely does not have time to do the job well.
Many practitioners see this as a cost-effective way to get reimbursement from insurance companies. Unfortunately, it rarely saves them money and can, in fact, make them lose revenue.
Outsourced services, however, involve hiring an expert as a contractor to handle the billing. This person or team is responsible for accurately submitting claims and following up if there are any issues. An outsourced biller removes all of this work from your shoulders.
Why You Should Outsource Medical Billing for Your Practice
When you outsource medical billing, you can make your practice more profitable.
It goes without saying that medical and mental health providers go into their fields to help. But, you also deserve to get paid, so that means that billing insurance companies is part of your reality.
To bring ease and profitability to your practice, here are five reasons to outsource your billing.
1. Accuracy
In-house billing teams sound like a great idea on paper. And occasionally, they are. Some providers are very adept at coding and billing and can stay on top of it accurately.
Unfortunately, the reality for most practices is that their billing position becomes a revolving door. With high turnover in this role, accuracy suffers, costing you money.
It is common for in-house billing departments to have about a quarter of their staff in training at any given time. I saw this in my own experience. At the practice where I learned medical billing, our team of seven or eight always had at least two employees in training.
This constant cycle of hiring and training someone new does not allow your billers to work with speed, accuracy, or consistency. As a result, you miss out on revenue.
Some experts believe that up to 80% of medical bills have errors. Even more conservative estimates of 50% are still alarming. These errors cost practices more than $100 billion each year. Without a stable, expertly-trained billing team, your practice is likely to be part of that statistic.
Medical billing errors cost practices billions of dollars each year.
When you hire an experienced outsourced billing company, you get a team you can rely on to get the work done. With a consistent staff, they can handle your practice’s claims swiftly and accurately to bring in the payments you deserve.
2. Speed and Follow-Up
If you’ve ever tried to call an insurance company about a billing issue, you know how long you end up waiting. Every one of those minutes is time that you are not working with patients. Many practitioners have to commit one full workday each week to insurance claims and follow-ups.
Outsourced billers, however, can do a lot of other work on your behalf while they are on hold with insurance companies. There are no wasted minutes as they efficiently continue their tasks while waiting to get answers. Those hours of on-hold time are yours again to see patients, take classes, or spend time with your family.
And unlike a receptionist who is trying to submit claims in between greeting and signing in patients, an outsourced biller only has one focus. We spend all of our work hours immersed in codes and claims, allowing us to process them quickly and confidently. With all this attention to your billing needs, you get accurate reimbursements rapidly.
3. Higher Clean Claims Percentage
With an outsourced biller, you will likely have higher claims success.
Some estimates indicate that up to 35% of medical claims result in denial on the first submission. Each resubmission costs the provider about $25, adding up to tremendous lost revenue.
If you or your employees are not hitting a 90-95% clean claims threshold, you leave a lot of money and time on the table. Medical billing outsourcing companies such as Doug Fir are the perfect solution.
We can help boost this vital metric for your revenue cycle with reduced errors and in-depth coding knowledge. And we can spot issues with insurers that may impact your ability to achieve clean claims.
In one practice where I worked before opening Doug Fir, a coworker and I discovered a significant problem that caused payments to stop from our largest insurance company. We had a solution, but we needed to implement it quickly to stay within the timeframe for resubmitting.
Unfortunately, it kept going up the chain of command without anyone agreeing to let us implement the fix. Eventually, time ran out, and the company lost about two million dollars as a result. Your outsourced billing team can see and address problems quickly to protect your income.
4. Lower Costs
When you hire an employee to handle your billing, it can feel like a good fit at first. But it also leaves you open to a lot of problems:
What if they quit suddenly?
What if they get sick or need to go on leave?
Who covers when they go on vacation?
Having a larger firm working for you ensures there are no gaps in service.
This situation can be even more disruptive in a nonprofit organization. In not-for-profit groups, their team members often fill multiple roles as they work to support the organization's mission. So a person in charge of billing may also be responsible for many other tasks. This plan can work sometimes. But there are likely to be many instances when the biller needs to focus on that full-time, leaving their other jobs undone if the worker is stretched too thin.
An outsourced billing team of more than one person provides the coverage you need. At Doug Fir, for example, we have enough staff to continue your service even when someone is on vacation or needs to take a leave of absence. We make sure our whole crew knows your practice well enough to do the job right.
With only a one-person billing department, your practice is at risk of losing money through late or improperly processed claims. And once you hire more than one person for your medical billing, it’s cheaper to hire an outside expert instead.
Keep in mind that you have to pay your employees their full salary and benefits no matter how slow or busy your practice is. If revenue is down, your payroll remains the same. But when you outsource medical billing, you generally pay a percentage of the payments that come through, saving you money when claims are down.
Outsourced billing providers also stay on top of updated regulations to ensure your practice remains compliant. This service has been especially crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic with the rise of telehealth appointments. Each insurance company requires different modifier and code combinations before they issue payments.
Telehealth coding and billing is very complicated.
One of our new clients was missing out on $5 per claim for six months due to these complicated rules. That adds up quickly! Luckily, now that we are their biller, we can redo the claims so that they get their compensation.
5. Client Satisfaction
Every practice, large or small, for-profit or not, relies on having happy patients and clients. Every minute that you spend on the phone instead of interacting with patients weakens their experience. By freeing up your time and energy to see more patients, you can grow your practice and revenue.
Additionally, denied claims due to errors and delays never make your clients happy. Hiring an outside firm to handle your medical billing can significantly improve the patient experience while boosting your bottom line.
Take Billing Off Your Full Plate
At Doug Fir Billing, we’ve lived the life of in-house medical billing. That experience is why we’re so happy to be on the other side of it to offer you a better option.
We have a highly-trained staff who provides full coverage to all of our clients. There are never gaps in service due to vacations or illnesses. Our team loves what we do. We count it an honor to remove stress from your practice so that you can shine in your expertise in treating patients.
For a free quote or to learn more about our outsourced medical billing services, reach out today.