Medical billing outsourcing is becoming a must for healthcare providers. Medical billing outsourcing can overcome several challenges and help provide better benefits for both—the outsourcing company and the healthcare provider in the long run.
In an ever-evolving and growing healthcare industry facing an unprecedented pace of technological innovations, Durable Medical Equipment/Home Medical Equipment billing (DME/HME billing) has become highly complex and time-consuming. Effective DME/HME business management to ensure streamlined revenue-cycle management requires time and resources, making it an increasingly challenging task for healthcare providers.
The answer to this challenge is outsourcing billing needs, a practice that has been in vogue in western countries for a long time and is becoming increasingly popular in India of late. The key to greater adoption of medical billing outsourcing is the growing realization of the multiple advantages it offers:
Benefits of Medical Billing Outsourcing for Healthcare Providers
Healthcare providers can avail of several benefits of medical billing outsourcing, such as below:
1. DME/HME can Focus on Business Development
The most significant advantage of medical billing outsourcing is that it relieves administrative and back-end burden on the DME/HME staff. It also allows them to focus on other critical aspects, including communication and due diligence of submitted documents. The outsourced staff is also trained thoroughly for the order-taking process.
2. Better Quality Checks and Simplified Processes
The billing process requires due diligence and an in-depth understanding of various processes such as insurance verification. Submission of incomplete or inaccurate information can lead insurance companies to delay or even deny payment, which can prove very costly for the DME/HME. Outsourcing can altogether avoid this situation as it helps streamline information management and processing to ensure more accurate and complete claim applications.
3. Trained and Expert Staff at Lesser Costs
Considering COVID-19 pandemic induced layoffs by many companies, outsourced medical billing assistance can help businesses avail themselves of the right expertise without scrambling to arrange for it in-house. This benefit also allows enterprises to avoid making new investments in training their staff and enhancing their skills to the desired levels.
4. Latest Infrastructure and Technology Assistance
Also, outsourced assistance enables businesses to hit top gear right from the start. The facility also allows DME/HME access to infrastructure without the need to make any capital investments, frees them from the hassles of system maintenance and updates, and allows them the leverage to offer service extensions to clients.
5. Compliance with HIPAA Guidelines and Other Regulatory Norms
Efficient medical billing processes, compliances with various regulatory norms, and vulnerability management are critical for DME/HME businesses to ensure growth and stability. Yet, none of these is possible without having experienced resources with the right skillsets at one’s disposal. Outsourced billing assistance is a sure-shot way of ushering in greater efficiency and preventing data gaps. It can also help reduce expenses by streamlining revenue cycle management.
6. Due Care for Privacy of Patient Information
While the growing adoption of technology has made our lives easier, it has also increased privacy concerns. For healthcare providers, the challenge is to secure sensitive patient information. DME/HME billing largely depends on personally identifiable information to process claims and payments successfully, and protecting patient data is a must. Instead of investing in systems and creating the infrastructure that provides end-to-end encryption to secure patient information, billing outsourcing can help DME/HME businesses leverage professional assistance to access such capabilities.
7. Benefits for the Outsourcing Company
Outsourcing companies can avail of several benefits of this process, such as below:
8. Increase in employment opportunities
With the outsourcing model, employment opportunities in India have increased tremendously, especially during the pandemic. Even at Analytix Healthcare Solutions, there are plans to add over 100 employees to meet the increasing demand.
9. Rise in in-house revenue
Outsourcing encourages investment in India and contributes to the inflow of revenue to India that enhances the standard of living. The result is a win-win situation for all. Therefore, medical billing outsourcing can overcome several challenges and help provide better benefits for both—the outsourcing company and the healthcare provider in the long run.
Allan Bell
Vice President – Business Operations (DMS)
Analytix Solutions.
