Did you know that 80% of all medical bills contain mistakes? Even worse, $68 billion in lost healthcare spending can be attributed to medical billing mistakes, according to Kaiser Health.
According to a recent article from Medical Economics, the problem is pervasive among small and independent practices.
“The combination of busy doctors and undertrained staff results in inaccurate billing, requiring superbills to be returned to doctors,” says Elvira Kasimova, billing department supervisor for the WCH Service Bureau. “Practices often fail to ascertain the correct insurance coverage and making sure that their services are determined to be medically necessary under the patient’s insurance coverage.”
As the article mentions, the stakes are high. When it comes to Medicare billing, the federal government and Office of Inspector have “zero tolerance” for any inadvertent errors, fraud or abuse, which means a practice can be prevented from billing Medicare or Medicaid services for years if it is found negligent. Not only are the financial implications large, patient health implications loom large as well. Improper coding can lead to a patient receiving incorrect treatment at another provider.
So what’s a practice to do? Medical billing mistakes can be mitigated by conducting more frequent and in-depth training for in-house billing staff. Conducting regular billing audits can also help to catch small mistakes before they become large problems for your practice. For practices that want to avoid the hassle of in-house billing or are overwhelmed by all of the logistics that come with in-house billing, a third-party medical biller is a smart option.
If you’re interested in reducing your billing mistakes by outsourcing, please contact us. We’d appreciate the chance to walk you through our services and introduce you to the medical billing professionals that will ensure your practice gets paid accurately and quickly.
Leave a Reply