5 Signs It's Time To Hire a Medical Biller for Your Clinic

Did you start your practice so that you could spend a lot of time dealing with insurance companies? Did you go to medical school, get your master’s, or defend your dissertation with the hopes of tackling mountains of paperwork? If not, you’re probably ready to hire a medical biller to take over that chore.

Doug Fir Billing is honored to support a variety of outstanding practitioners in the Portland Metro area. Our team works quickly and efficiently to take medical billing off your plate, freeing you to focus on your practice. 

And unlike when you hire a solo biller, you always have coverage with our crew. If one of our employees heads out of town, others on the team can cover so that you don’t have any gaps in your billing. We’re happy, you’re happy…it’s a win-win! Reach out to learn more about our services.

Is It Time To Hire a Medical Biller for Your Clinic?

If you’re Googling this topic, there’s a good chance that getting some medical billing support is the right choice. I hear horror stories from my clients about problems and issues they dealt with before outsourcing their billing. And almost across the board, they wish they had made the decision sooner. 

After all, you have worked hard to establish and build your practice, and you deserve to do the work you love. So here are five signs that it’s time to hire a medical biller for your clinic.

1. Owner Burnout

Handling everything for your practice as the owner is nearly impossible. After all, it’s unlikely that your schooling offered in-depth training on things like paneling with insurance providers or doing your own billing. Your degree prepared you to be an excellent practitioner, not a medical biller.

If you find that you are burnt out and overwhelmed by the paperwork side of running your clinic, it’s probably time to hire a medical billing service. An outsourced biller can work quickly and efficiently because it’s their only job. Unlike you as the owner, they don’t have to fit billing into the moments between caring for patients.

Trying to keep your medical billing in-house usually results in an overworked owner and administrative staff. When this happens, you are likely to make costly mistakes.

2. Staff Turnover

Hiring and retaining a qualified staff takes a lot of time, work, and expense. And right now, in 2022, finding and keeping excellent employees is extremely difficult. If your administrative staff is trying to handle all of your medical billing on top of other tasks that keep your practice running, they may be approaching burnout.

Long hours, too much multitasking, and insufficient support can lead to an overwhelmed staff and owner! And overwhelmed staff members are likely to leave for greener pastures. If you find that your team is dropping the ball or complaining about their workload, you may be facing turnover very soon. And it may be very challenging to replace employees who leave.

With a cost of about $4000 above their salary, hiring and training a new employee is expensive. Most practices can’t afford to lose their staff, so help protect them from burnout and you from turnover by hiring a medical biller to take that job off their to-do list. 

3. Delayed Reimbursement and Denied Claims

When you do not have the proper staff in place or they have too many tasks to handle, things tend to fall through the cracks. Physicians in the US lose approximately $125 billion each year to medical billing errors. That’s Billion with a B. 

Even with hardworking employees on your staff, mistakes and oversights happen because clinics are busy places with many moving parts. And when these billing errors occur, they lead to denied claims and a costly loss of revenue for your practice. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If you’re experiencing denied claims or delays in reimbursement, it’s a good sign that you need to hire a dedicated outsourced medical biller. They can focus solely on the billing part of your practice without distractions. Their focus and expertise allow outsourced billers to work quickly to get you paid.

4. Weak Revenue

Growing and supporting your practice requires you to keep your revenue stream strong. When the amount of money coming into the clinic is inconsistent and doesn’t align with your work, there are major consequences for your bottom line. 

You lose money when your staff has to spend extra time and resources to follow up on billing errors and omissions. These weak income numbers impact every area of your practice and hinder your revenue cycle management. If your monthly financial statements and reports are grim, it’s probably time for outside billing help.

Frequently, the overarching problem in clinic billing is inefficiency. An inefficient process generally leads to redundancies and errors that add up to significant lost revenue. Working with a professional medical biller is the simplest way to solve this problem. Since billing is their only job, they have systems in place to streamline the process and ensure thorough completion of the job.

5. Limited Time for Patients

Your patients should be your primary focus in your practice. Your training, expertise, and experience are all to serve your patients. When your medical billing becomes a burden, your focus starts to shift. 

One Portland-area naturopath got to the point where she was spending one full day every week just to follow up on denied and delayed billing claims. That was an entire day that she couldn’t see patients and wasn’t earning income. It set her practice adrift until she outsourced the work and could get back to doing what she loved - caring for patients.

Our Outsourced Staff Is Here To Support You

Medical billing is one piece of a successful practice, and it’s one part of serving your clients and patients. But it doesn’t have to be the piece that you are responsible for on a daily basis. Choosing a medical billing company can allow you to reclaim your time, passion, and genius in caring for patients. 

Doug Fir Billing is thrilled to work behind the scenes on your behalf so that your patients get the high-quality care they deserve and you get the compensation you’ve earned. Reach out today to get a quote and learn more about how we can serve you.