The decision to outsource medical billing and collections or keep revenue cycle management (RCM) in-house is one that weighs heavily on doctors and medical practice owners. The right decision depends on your practice’s needs, the talent pool available for medical billers and coders, and other considerations.
After clinical operations, revenue cycle management is the most important process of your practice to ensure long-term success. And with better technology, more informed patients, and fastly growing competition, it’s never been more important that your medical billing processes are in top shape. So our medical billing services experts put together this guide to help you understand if outsourcing your billing services is right for your practice.
Why Outsource Your Medical Billing Operations?
There are many benefits to outsourcing medical billing processes and each practice will have to decide what works best for them. There are also misconceptions surrounding the pros and cons of a practice utilizing an outsourcing company for medical billing. Let us walk you through the three most common benefits of outsourcing medical billing.
Outsourcing medical billing saves your practice money
A common misconception about outsourcing revenue cycle management is that it’s too costly for practices to afford. Outsourcing medical billing is actually less expensive on average than keeping revenue cycle management in-house.
Besides the fact that your practice won’t have to pay for access to top talent (see below), medical billing companies operate and perform at a fraction of the cost of in-house billing. Their billing staff tends to work very efficiently, needing little time to onboard and start working with a practice. Software Advice has even gone as far as performing a cost analysis of in-house billing versus outsourced billing services. Take a look here.
You gain access to dedicated and experienced billing staff
Outsourced medical billing almost eliminates the time-consuming burden of RCM for a medical practice. For 58% of physicians, their practices spend the equivalent of one day a week on paperwork—so the relief from billing department duties is welcome. By outsourcing medical billing, your practice management staff will spend less time on billing tasks and more time on patient care.
In addition, outsourcing your medical billing and collections will allow you to attain top coding and collections talent without paying for multiple, expert-level salaries. Some practices often find they would love to have a certified medical coding specialist, but can’t justify a full-time position. Medical billing companies can employ highly-trained and credentialed billing staff like coders, and share their skills and expense with their practice clients. This is a win-win situation, allowing practices access to high-end skills they can’t afford full-time and allowing the professionals to work full-time at the top of their capabilities.
You create transparency around your revenue cycle
The right medical billing company will deliver a top-notch transparency agreement. Your medical billing company should supply you with comprehensive performance reports automatically or upon request. This grants you unparalleled visibility into your billing operations without requiring you to micromanage billing staff.
Should You Outsource Your Medical Billing?
Besides costs, there are other factors that you should consider when deciding to outsource medical billing services for your practice:
-
Your billing process is inefficient and suffers from billing errors.
-
You have a high staff turnover and difficulty with staffing new hires.
-
Your practice or billing team is not tech-savvy.
-
You are a new healthcare provider.
Ready to jumpstart your medical billing?
Does your medical practice need help with revenue cycle management? Benchmark Systems provides practices like yours with experienced RCM experts and services. Chat with one of our experts to learn more!
