While reading Physicians Practice magazine online, we tripped across a good, if a bit negative, blog written by a practice-based medical biller. The blog is titled “A Look At The Average Day of a Medical Biller.”
While not trying to, the piece really makes the case for outsourcing your medical billing. The poor, over-worked biller is constantly interrupted while trying to get the practices bills paid. This passage is a perfect example:
Dear Diary:
It took me all day yesterday to review accounts because I kept getting interrupted with questions from the front desk like this: “Does Mr. Jackson have to pay his surgery deposit today?” “Do you know where the doctor is?” “We were checking benefits, and BCBS asked me for our tax ID, do you know what they’re talking about?” “Ms. Smith said you told her she didn’t have to pay her copay today….did you say that?”
Besides the distractions, the practice-based biller gets hit with verbal barrages from patients unhappy about their bills. While our billers at Clinic Service aren’t fond of these assaults either, we do take pride in the fact that we handle the abuse professionally, and, most importantly, we are insulating our clients from the harassment.
“Mr. Jones called back today to say that if I did ruin his credit by sending him to collections that he would tell all his friends to never come here. I thought to myself….if your friends are anything like you, why would we want them here anyway?”
We thought this response, from a reader named Sally, to the “day in the life” blog was spot on.
“All those interruptions from the other aspects of the practice support the argument that for many practices, outsourcing the medical billing is a huge help.”
Well said, Sally. Well said.
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