Amidst the challenges of medical billing and coding, hospitals are meticulously trying to juggle revenue cycle and quality patient care
As hospitals provide medical services for a range of specialties, they usually witness immense patient intake. Each patient with unique requirements and different treatment plans can pile up and affect the administrative management.
On top of that, hospitals must consider regulatory requirements and frequently changing trends in medical billing and coding. No doubt, elevating the revenue cycle management is cumbersome for healthcare facilities.
Handling the workload can be stressful, and it can shift the focus from patient care to medical billing. This inevitably leads healthcare practices towards hospital billing services for seeking goal-driven solutions.
This blog is a simplified guide to hospital billing. By the end of this blog, you will understand the contribution of hospital billing services to navigating the complex road of medical billing and coding.
Understanding Hospital Billing
Hospital billing is a tedious process of recording patient data, taking insurance approvals, checking the coverage, claim filing, and claim submission. This is done for every patient with different treatments and details.
Managing all this together poses multiple intricacies leading to errors and missing details that further cause denials. Moreover, healthcare practices must focus on tackling denials and conducting proper follow-ups.
Hospital billing services are proficient in performing medical billing for various specialties. They can provide needed support to hospitals and help them elevate their revenue.
Let’s go through every step in the hospital billing process and learn how it functions.
Hospital Billing – A Step-by-Step Process
The medical billing and coding process begins with scheduling appointments and patients do it before their visit. With this, the process initiates and continues till the hospital receives remuneration.
Registration
As discussed earlier, before entering the healthcare facility, patients schedule their appointments and register themselves. It is mandatory to keep a check on the number of patients every day. The loop of making errors also starts at this step.
Determining Financial Responsibility
Before receiving treatment, patients are introduced to their financial responsibility. This is also the right time to verify insurance eligibility and find out the coverage limits of the patient’s insurance policy.
Recording & Documentation
After verification, it is time to record patient demographic data and document it with complete accuracy. Mistakes at this stage of hospital billing can prevent denials and revenue leakage.
Hospital billing services eliminate manual mistakes and ensure error-free documentation.
Medical Coding
Once the patient receives treatment, the next step is medical coding. This is the crucial step in translating rendered services into the right CPT and ICD-10 codes. Most denials happen because of errors in coding, which is why there is a need for expert coders.
Claim Submissions
Successful claim filing is followed by the submission of claims. Without this step, there is no meaning in any of the above-mentioned steps. Healthcare practice must keep in mind that submissions are supposed to be made within a time frame. A failure to meet such deadlines results in denials.
Claim Tracking
The task is not over at claim submission, after which healthcare practices invest their time in tracking those claims. This is to identify the position of claims and potential shortcomings. Only after knowing the status, healthcare practices can take corrective action.
Denial Management & Follow-Up
Another vital step in medical billing and coding is an effective denial management and follow-up procedure. This is essential to rectify denied claims and recover the lost revenue. This is possible as most denied claims can be reconciled with some changes and resubmissions.
Medical billing services effortlessly handle the denial management process and help healthcare practices in reclaiming reimbursement.
Benefits of Hospital Billing Services
A medical billing company can not only streamline the workflow but also help healthcare practices in improving revenue cycle management. Outsourcing hospital billing services can be beneficial for healthcare practices in the following ways:
Knowledge and Expertise
A hospital billing company brings in the expertise and knowledge that healthcare providers lack. It works with a team of professional coders and billers who are proficient in dealing with complex medical billing. The team understands the reasons that make hospital billing different from physician billing. That is why they easily navigate through intricate challenges.
Reduction in Errors
Another important advantage of outsourcing healthcare billing services is a significant reduction in errors. In medical billing, errors can occur in every step of medical billing. It can be documentation, coding, or claim filing. These mistakes cause denials and revenue loss. However, a professional billing team eliminates errors and prevents the healthcare practice from unwanted denials.
Cost Saving
Managing an in-house medical billing staff is a major investment for healthcare practices. Moreover, they have to provide a well-functioning infrastructure for the staff. They must adjust to staff leaves and compromise medical billing and coding.
However, partnering with medical billing services is a one-time investment. It doesn’t include any extra costs and the process flows continuously without any delays. If a healthcare practice faces any billing issues, the outsourcing partner has solutions for them. All in all, hospital billing services are cost-saving and an affordable option for effective revenue cycle management.
Improved Revenue Cycle
The main goal behind perfect medical billing is elevated revenue and optimized workflow.
Medical billing services help hospitals in achieving this goal. They eliminate existing errors and streamline the operational flow to boost the bottom line.
As a result, healthcare practices improve their revenue cycle and achieve adequate reimbursement.
Patient Satisfaction
The task that stresses healthcare providers is ineffective medical billing. When things are under control and handled well, healthcare providers can relax and focus their energy on patient care.
Other than that, steps such as patient registration are done hassle-free. At the same time, healthcare providers get more time to concentrate on rendering medical services. With this, patient satisfaction increases, and healthcare practices are also at ease.
Final Thoughts
Hospital billing services can help medical facilities shift from revenue cycle management to patient care. Together, practices and healthcare billing services can bring a drastic change in revenue and uplift administrative management.
A reliable source to outsource medical billing for hospitals is Unify Healthcare Services.
Unify Healthcare Services is considered the best medical billing company in USA. We have a full-fledged team to help you with hospital billing. Our team dedicates their time to improving your hospital’s operational and administrative flow. The team effectively eliminates the scope of errors and prevents denials. After every step is carried out well, professional billers track claims to detect issues. They reconcile the denied claims and reclaim the lost revenue. Other than that, the team takes all necessary measures to improve the overall functioning of your hospital.
