Orthopaedists Hiring a Medical Billing Service to Sail through Rising Expenses

Rising expenses amidst reimbursement cuts is one of the biggest challenges faced by orthopaedists in today’s time. It has not only affected the financial health of practices but it might also lead to restricted care for some patients in future.

Billing issues:

Decline in reimbursement has affected orthopaedic surgeons and healthcare providers across the US. Timely billing has become a challenge since new medical billing and coding changes were introduced for orthopaedics in 2013. In order to ensure that billing issues don’t reduce their payments further, orthopaedic practices are being compelled to invest money on hiring and training a team of skilled billers and coders who will ensure that the practice gets paid for all the services on time

Compliance with latest health IT:

Amidst Medicare cuts and reduced fee schedules, orthopaedic practices are being required to comply with latest health IT standards to conduct operational functions. This has also increased pressure on practices as implementation of required technology can be quite expensive

Recruitment of clinical and business staff:

In order to give an edge to your practice and offer excellent care and services to patients, recruitment of skilled and certified clinical and business office staff has become vital. This is also an area where orthopaedic practices will have to spend money for hiring and training

How can a billing partner help save your practice?

Apart from Medicare cuts, orthopaedic practices are also facing reimbursement cuts in the form of 10-15% insurance underpayments. Since these services are expensive, even 1% underpayment can result in significant revenue loss. In order to ensure that silly billing and coding errors don’t lead to payment cuts, many practices are seeking help from a billing company to streamline their billing procedure.

Orthopaedic practices can reap various other benefits through outsourcing such as:

• Quality assurance checks on a regular basis
• Effective account receivable management
• Progress report of filed claims in a timely basis
• Transparency in revenue cycle management
• Round the clock claim processing
• Usage of secure network to solve billing issues
• Enhanced cash flow
• Quick access to financial information and patient data

Hiring a billing partner will eliminate the cost involved in employing or training coders and billers, implementation of health IT, compliance to HIPAA and so on. It will not just result in timely payment, helping practices sail through rising expenses but also give enough time to physicians to concentrate on offering quality patient care.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com has the largest consortium of well-trained resources that can help you face the challenges of reimbursement cuts and rising expenses. MBC has affiliation with orthopaedic medical billing specialists across 50 states in the US and our team of certified coders and billers offer effective medical billing services to small as well as large orthopaedic practices.

From solving underpayment issues to ensuring error-free claim submission for timely payment, MBC makes sure that revenue cycle management of your practice is strong. We also focus on reduction of billing and coding changes on the revenue flow of your practice.

Accuracy in Documentation Vital for Effective Optometry Medical Billing

Maintaining accuracy in documentation is extremely important for optometry billing. This is not only required for error-free coding, billing, claim submission and follow-ups with insurance companies but also for avoiding malpractice lawsuits.

Insufficient and inaccurate documentation have cost medical practices millions of dollars. Rate of errors may have dropped for optometry practices but even a small fraction can lead to disrupted cash flow. 2014 has brought various challenges related to healthcare reforms, increased federal scrutiny and rising costs. Amidst all these complexities, it has become essential to concentrate on documentation in order to avoid delayed or lost payments.

Missing information leads to inaccurate coding:

Identification and correction of coding gaps has become essential during optometry billing to get paid on time. This has pushed the need to improve clinical documentation. Audit plans have become stricter and with the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule cuts, providers cannot afford to lose more money due to inaccuracy in documentation.

With the implementation of ICD-10 in October 2014, codes relevant to eye care will expand to over 100 pages of codes. In order to choose the correct diagnosis codes and ensure high level of specificity, you will be required to provide accurate documentation to your coders.

Optometry Billing Challenges in maintaining documentation accuracy:

There is no doubt that optometrists can now provide a wide range of professional services to patients but managed care has forced them to attend more patients every day. This has not only reduced the time they usually spent on each patient encounter but also reduced the time required for accurate documentation.

Providers need to be in sync with latest documentation trends. They also need to be aware of guidelines related to optometry billing in order to document properly. With ICD-10 round the corner, they also need to be conversant with ICD-10 related optometry billing and documentation as it will be required when the diagnosis system will change.

Seeking help from an Optometry billing partner:

Improper documentation leads to improper coding which results in penalties and your practice can get expelled from managed care programs. Therefore, it is important to be compliant and proficient in optometry billing and coding.

Thorough knowledge of optometry coding, billing and documentation is required for supporting claims and considering the lack of time and resources; hiring a billing partner makes a lot of sense. MBC Optometry billing team of skilled coders and billers have the required experience and expertise to handle optometry coding. Since a team of experts is assigned for maximizing revenue and minimizing claim denials, providers can utilize their time to pay full attention to documentation and patient care.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com offers effective optometric billing and coding solutions to practices across 50 states in the US. For optometry practices with an in-house billing department, MBC can help optimize revenue management system and prepare it for meeting modern medical billing and coding challenges. While we handle the daunting tasks of coding and billing, you can make use of the spare time to concentrate on documentation and other vital tasks.