In the olden days, most healthcare providers took care of their billing. The physicians decided the fees for the rendered treatments. Upon setting the cost, the bills for the same were passed onto the insurance companies, and they paid them in return for the statements submitted. Mostly it was paperwork, and hardly any technology was required.
We have witnessed a consistent evolution in the healthcare industry in recent years. We get transformed by these changes, especially in the scientific advancements, policies of insurance providers and the patient's privacy. Thereby creating exclusive opportunities for emerging technologies to aid in the crucial medical billing and coding industry to remain successful. In this blog, let us discuss the future of medical billing: the emerging trends and technologies.
Emerging Medical Billing Technology and Trends
With each year, people worldwide have begun spending money on their health comparatively. With increased spending, operational costs have grown for many healthcare organizations. Consistently coding is getting even more intricate by the day, with numerous unique codes for every medical system, situation and procedure. We can be assured that these codes will continue to evolve in the healthcare industry.
But the good news is that the medical billing and coding industry is advancing quickly towards maximized efficiency and effectiveness. Let us see some of the recent medical billing technology and trends aiding the industry to stay focused and well ahead in the right direction.
1. Blockchain medical billing:
It isundeniable that multiple challenges are crammed within the medical billing and coding process. Some challenges include false filings, process duplications, billing code errors, and unintentional billings.
Blockchain medical billing aids healthcare providers in avoiding the scope for errors. It is an efficient distributed ledger that reflects proof once a successful transaction is processed. Data integrity and protection for medical organizations, their patient health data, EHRs (Electronic Health Records), claims data and their monitor system data are achieved with such advancement.
Not only that, Blockchain technology is responsible for recording the billing data in such a way that no alteration can be made to them until the recipient receives them.
2. Computer-Assisted Coding (CAC)
While coding the inpatient claims, we observe that Computer-Assisted coding has grown swiftly recently. It has worried many healthcare professionals as they are disturbed that many industry workers might lose their jobs and be replaced with this new technology within a decade. But the undeniable truth is that human workers are greatly benefitted from the practical assistance of this computer-assisted coding software. It was discovered through a recent study that the coder's productivity escalated by 20% and minimized their coding time by 22%, getting reduced when compared to the ones who failed to use the CAC. On the contrary, with the assistance of a professional human coder, it was observed that the CAC software's accuracy could have been higher.
3. Alignment of EHR and medical billing software
In the case of reimbursement, inaccuracies while maintaining the records, unfortunately, lead to a load of issues. An enormous amount of precious time gets wasted by many medical practices as they probe through in the pursuit of the correct diagnostic codes and miss out on knowing their patients better. But do not worry about it anymore, as your record-keeping activities' effectiveness can be enhanced by integrating technologies. Primarily it greatly benefits getting your EHR and medical billing software aligned. On top of that, the process can be quickened even more if CAC gets offered by your medical billing. With these integrations' help, automated code suggestions pop up while documenting is made possible, which in turn aids in the accuracy of the codes right from the start. Much time gets saved, and you can avoid potential errors and prepare comprehensive reports compared to the traditional EHR and billing methods followed earlier.
4. Outsourcing the Medical Billing services
Many opportunities are lost by a healthcare organization when they fail to keep track of the consistently emerging trends, which simultaneously affect the success of the healthcare. In medical billing and coding, it is paramount to remain updated and always upgrade to keep up with the ever-emerging new trends and practices to stay ahead of the curve. For the safety of the patients and to ensure that the healthcare organization's operations are seamless, protected and of high quality, time management must be proper and get allotted for both the back-office management tasks and the medical service offered to the patients in their facilities.
Since medical practitioners are concerned about providing premium care to satisfy their patients and increase their visits, they are choosing to outsource the complicated task of medical billing and coding services. Since RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) is pivotal for taking care of quite a lot of complex procedures, right from setting up patient appointments, submitting accurate claims, AR follow-up, collection of payments and many such vital processes, it occurs to be one of the best aspects and significant concern for the medical practitioners. Outsourcing medical billing services help medical practices streamline this necessary process and focus more on the patients, offering them premium care and allowing them to utilize their resources to the optimum while enjoying a healthy revenue drive.
Conclusion:
Globally the healthcare industry faced highly challenging times and was exhausted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These emerging trends and technologies create great scope to evolve the entire healthcare practice and easily equip them to face such challenges. Also, the patients feel more secure, and their satisfaction levels increase; the staffs are much more productive and tend to render better service and care.