Myths and Facts About Medical Billing

 Accurate and efficient medical billing for any healthcare facility is a must for a great revenue stream and undisrupted cash flow.

Even when you are hiring professionals from a reputable medical billing company to handle all your billing-related matters, you still may have certain doubts in your mind about whether outsourcing is right or not.

Furthermore, other common myths related to medical billing itself may also be causing your healthcare facility to be behind your competitors as well as financially.

Of course, you want to provide the best patient care, and it also involves smooth billing.

In this article, we’ll share the common myths about medical billing and the facts to help you run your healthcare practice successfully.

Myth #1: Only Medical Knowledge and Materials Is Required

While it’s true that a medical billing team should have a solid knowledge of medical terminologies and common diseases to perform their best at work.

Nevertheless, you need to know more than this.

Medical billing specialists are also well-versed with insurance policies, HIPPA regulations, and coding guidelines. In addition, they have excellent math skills and can easily understand and read detailed medical records.

They are also great at communicating with insurance companies and physicians.

Myth #2: Medical Billing Is Just Data Entry

A medical billing team typically involves a coder, biller, and accounts receivables analyst. Data entry isn’t the only thing that’s involved in medical billing.

It’s so much more than this.

You need to submit claims to insurance companies and be well aware of their policies for effective communication. In case of rejection, you need to be able to handle it the right way.

You also need to collect the pending amounts from patients and ensure your accounts receivables management is top-notch. Medical coding requires a deep understanding of the codes, so the patient is billed right.

Myth #3: Anyone Can Do Medical Billing

Thinking as a medical practice owner that you can do medical billing on your own just because it’s extremely easy, and you have to simply bill your patients and receive money is one of the common myths out there.

Medical billing requires you to have a deep understanding of medical terminologies and expertise in translating procedures or diagnoses into codes.

In addition, you need to be well aware of the insurance company policies, HIPPA regulations, and whatnot.

All this requires a great deal of knowledge, expertise, skills, time, and effort, and not just anyone can do it.

Myth #4: One Has Better Control with an In-House Billing Team

Of course, you may believe that having an in-house billing team means that you will always be able to have them in front of your eyes. This way, you have better control.

However, this may only make you feel like you have better control, but in reality, it doesn’t matter where a professional medical billing team needs to be in order to perform their work.

When outsourcing your medical billing to a reliable agency, you still have all the control. You can get access to weekly or monthly reports.

You don’t have to constantly supervise the employees, train them, or deal with employee turnover.

With a poor in-house billing team and massive costs on top of it, having a bit of “control” over them won’t really do any good to your practice in the long run.

Myth #5: Outsourcing Medical Billing Is Extremely Expensive

Another common myth about medical billing is that outsourcing is extremely expensive, so it’s better to go for in-housing billing.

The fact is that outsourcing billing allows you to manage the operations of your facility better, take care of your patients better, keep the cash flow smooth, and improve collection periods and insurance claim rates.

All this leads to better revenues and profit margins.

You also don’t have to separately invest in infrastructure for in-house billing and training costs or even deal with employee turnover or absentees, which can significantly affect your practice. 

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