Every urgent care facility needs a billing expert. In an ideal world, each practice has a team member who excels at all medical billing services like contracting negotiations, credentialing, coding, meeting compliance, submitting claims, formatting claims, and collecting bills. But the reality is that very few employees meet all of those needs. An in-house billing expert will help your practice to maintain more control over the process, but most in-house employees have limited knowledge. An outsourced billing service typically provides less control to the practice, but it covers all of your essential billing needs. It also removes the threat of a single point of failure, giving your practice the stability that it requires. Each billing system has pros and cons of its own. And every urgent care facility has different exigencies when it comes to optimizing cash flow. But in most cases, outsourced billing services provide a more thorough approach to optimizing the medical revenue cycle. Here are the pros and cons of each service type.
Using In-House Medical Billing Services
Some urgent care facilities hire an internal billing expert or a small team of experts to manage everything from submitting claims to collecting defaulted payments. An in-house billing team allows the practice to create their own billing structure, which provides heightened control over the overall medical billing process. But having control without expertise sets the practice up to take on a lot of risk. For example, a team that is unable to effectively resolve problematic claim denials may contribute to a higher level of business losses. Or overtaxed employees may contribute to oversight within the medical billing process, creating additional obstacles down the line.
An in-house billing department also requires the use of medical billing software, which can be costly. In order to optimize the use of that medical billing software each practice may need to invest in more administrative training, as well.
Urgent care facilities that choose to run their own billing department also run the risk of experiencing employee turnover, or disruptions due to terminations, which carries a price tag of its own. There’s also a scarcity of medical billing experts, which means that employing their services may carry a heavy price tag.
Using Outsourced Billing Services
One common reason why medical practices learn towards managing their own billing department as opposed to using a third party service is because they assume that doing so saves the practice money. Contrary to common belief, outsourced billing services can optimize the cash flow of your practice while reducing the costs that are associated with training and maintaining competent billing professionals of your own.Third-party medical billing companies typically offer simple, stable, services that help to prioritize risk management, which can reduce the threat of litigation or income loss. This strategy can also contribute to saving the practice time, which allows it to focus on the care that it’s providing.
Using a third-party medical billing company may also contribute to a reduction of medical billing errors throughout the revenue cycle. Practices that choose to rely on this type of service typically take on less risk, and don’t have to account for company turnover, layoffs, and terminations. Hiring external billing services is also convenient, because it reduces the workload and risk of each practice.
Are you interested in reducing accounts receivables? Are your medical billing errors out of hand? Could you use some support within your practice? Reliant Billing Services provides decades of expertise, supporting urgent care facilities across the state. Contact us today to discuss solutions to your medical billing process.
