The financial health of any healthcare organization depends on how efficient the revenue cycle of the organization is. For a highly efficient revenue cycle management, the medical coding and claims submission process should be highly effective.
Medical coding is the core of any medical claims process. Error in medical coding contributes the highest percentage for the claim rejection.
When your organization outsources medical coding, it means, the coding process is transferred to another external organization, who are specialized in those services.
When it comes to healthcare, there are many moving parts. It’s difficult for an organization to keep up with all the changes happening in the industry. If you’re working with an in-house coding team, you need to retrain new coders every time a change is made.
Additionally, while your in-house team may be knowledgeable about specific coding guidelines for your area, they may not be up to date on new guidelines that affect other areas of healthcare. This can be problematic because these new guidelines could lead to lower revenue if your team doesn’t know how to code properly.
With medical billing and coding outsourcing, you don’t have these challenges. Your outside company will take care of any changes in coding requirements, so you don't have to worry about retraining staff or losing revenue.
1. The cost-advantage
Medical coding is a time-consuming and expensive process. Coding an individual medical claim can take up to six hours. And, if you are paying your in-house team competitive salaries, you could be spending a huge amount on salaries and on other statutory compliances like insurance, retirals, etc. Outsourcing medical coding is an affordable solution. Hiring a coding specialist will provide the same level of coding service while it saves time and money for the organization. The costs of outsourcing also depend on the frequency of work required. For example, if your organization requires complex custom codes, outsourcing every few weeks may be more effective than hiring full-time personnel on an annual salary basis. Outsourcing medical coding to a vendor is cost-effective.
2. Access to a larger pool of skilled talent
Outsourcing does not only help in being cost-effective, but it also addresses the hiring challenges and helps us maintain consistent staff levels at all stages. As medical coding requires skilled talent, hunting for such specialized resources is a big challenge for the healthcare organization. If outsourced, you are free from such issues as the outsourced vendor takes care of the availability of staffing. Hiring, training of staff, etc will be managed by the vendor easing out your burden. By outsourcing this position, you won’t have to worry about the burden of finding, hiring, and training qualified staff. Additionally, with an outsourced medical coder, you don't have to deal with the potential turnover that occurs when staff members leave.
3. Focus on core areas and improved patient satisfaction
Outsourcing medical coding can free up your time and resources to a large extent. The hospital administration can focus on their core areas in providing enhanced medical care to their patients. This contributes to improving patient satisfaction and elevating the patient experience. Outsourcing coding will allow you to manage your essential business operations more efficiently.
With medical coding trained professionals on the job, the quality and accuracy of medical coding are consistent. The errors in medical coding are reduced significantly thus reducing the medical claim rejection percentage. With higher accuracy, more claims can be processed in a shorter time.
4. Increased process efficiency and productivity
Medical billing and coding outsourcing can improve efficiency and accuracy, which is a huge benefit for your organization. When you outsource your medical coding and billing to an outsourcing partner like Business Integrity Services, they bring experience and in handling and delivering medical billing outsourcing projects. Their subject matter expertise and deep domain knowledge lead to a steep increase in process efficiency and productivity, thus increasing the bottom line of your company significantly.
5. Better and faster deliveries
Higher process efficiency makes your service offerings better with high-quality deliverables. It also decreases the overall turn-around time for the complete medical billing and coding process. It helps your claim process TAT, and the overall cycle is completed at a faster pace. This provides better cash flow to operate.
6. Stay Compliant with all Legal Regulations
It is very important to stay compliant with HIPAA regulations for all medical-related processes. Medical coding being a complex process, the set of rules and regulations for HIPAA compliance involves a lot of paperwork. Despite your best efforts, in-house medical coders may make mistakes when they are struggling to keep up with the demands of an overloaded job. Errors happen and when they do, you could be fined.
HIPAA regulations dictate that any healthcare organization must protect the privacy of its patients by safeguarding their health information. This includes protecting it from loss or unauthorized access, use, disclosure, tampering, or destruction.
If you are not able to stay compliant with these regulations because you don’t have enough staff on hand, then outsourcing your medical coding is a good option for you. A third-party medical coding company will take care of all the paperwork so you can focus solely on running your practice and meeting patient needs. They will also provide regular reports about potential HIPAA violations so that if there are any discrepancies in your database, you can address them immediately.
7. Maximize Revenue
With better staffing, increased process efficiencies, the revenue of the healthcare organization increases manifold. Lesser rejection rates, increased claim approvals improve the revenue of the organization. With the increase in business revenue also increases. Maximizing revenue improves the financial health of the organization vitally.
Choosing the right partner to outsource your medical coding services is the key thing to reap all the benefits of outsourcing. Make sure your partner in the healthcare coding domain is structured and of high efficiency.
The medical coding services at BIS is a 6-layered structured process ensuring the highest levels of precision and effectiveness. Our experienced medical coding expert team is proficient in handling huge data volumes and complex cases. With our top-notch quality check team in place, our accuracy levels are the best in the industry.
At Business Integrity Services, we offer a full suite of medical coding services to our healthcare clients. Partner with us for hassle-free medical coding services.