Managing the income cycle might be one of the most popular yet important elements of a successful practice. However, it’s not precisely for many providers to manage a company that you first go to medicine and definitely not something they discuss at medical school in depth.
Even with a highly skilled office manager and medical accounting team, your revenue cycle management will probably be inefficient and contribute to lower total collections. This will affect your results immediately and effectively and your capacity to continue in business as a clinic. A better choice is to outsource your administration of the revenue cycle in some small and independent clinics. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of outsourced RCM are discussed.
Outsourcing advantages
As you assess if outsourcing is the appropriate decision or not, here are some of the main advantages that you may expect:
Higher collection rates – health billing services are delivered by specialised and highly qualified personnel who understand how revenues may be maximised. Often they collect considerably more than you can expect, as a percentage of the reimbursement. Increasing your clinical practice even a little by 5-10% might mean big income improvements.
Dedicated coding and billing employees – your team generally wear a lot of hats if you have a small practice, which implies they do not have so much medical coding and charging skills. Coding and invoicing correctly may prevent mistakes and boost collections. The possibility of an insufficiently educated internal staff breach of the HIPAA may also be reduced.
Costs saving – personnel expenditures are one of the largest costs, therefore it generally costs more than outsourcing for your own physician coding and billing team (even with any outsourcing fees).
Improvement of patient experience – one of the most patient complaints is billing mistakes, so that the entire patient experience is improved by simplifying your procedure, reduced needless claim denials and decreasing billing errors. Plus suppliers and employees may spend more time with your patients, as you will not be so administrative.
Outsourcing challenges
Before you decide to outsource, weigh some problems also.
Cost – the outsourcing costs are generally paid as a percentage of the overall invoice. To assess the favourable return you have on your internal recruiting expenditures and expected income gains by outsourcing.
Data security concerns – An extra risk of patient data infringement or HIPAA infringement occurs when transferring data to a third party contractor. Make sure you have a BAA signed and you deal with a vendor with a solid HIPAA compliance track record.
Lack of control – you have control over the whole process when you conduct internal billing. It implies relinquishing control, yet frequent reporting with the proper partner still guarantees that you are 100% aware of what happens to your funds.
Outsourcing is not appropriate in every clinic, but if you consider it a suitable decision, chat to GoDoctor to learn more about our services for medical billing.
