The Why of Outsourcing Your Medical Billing

Many practices have an aversion to outsourcing any part of their practice. There are ideas about the cost, quality of work and concerns over patient security. In many instances it isn’t a problem to keep things in-house because competent, motivated employees can be found to handle those tasks. There are well-trained professionals in your industry looking for jobs that you can hire. However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes tasks are obscure or rare in your industry and finding an employee with the knowledge who you can accommodate will not be possible. Most dental billers do not have extensive medical billing knowledge and most medical billers would not be kept busy forty hours per week in the average dental practice. This creates a void where an employee is needed but cannot be found or the practice cannot afford to hire a qualified person. Enter outsourcing…
Outsourcing can take many forms. It doesn’t always mean shipping work overseas, although that is an option in today’s economy. Sometimes outsourcing can just be hiring a freelance contractor to work from home. Maybe you place an ad and a local professional comes in to your office a few hours a week or works from home via remote connection to file your claims for you. Or you can go the route of a third party billing company who files your claims for a percentage of your billable or collected amounts.
The most common myth with outsourcing is that it isn’t secure. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Every day you allow vendors to remotely access your patient’s data without a second thought. Do you have a patient communication system like Weave? Do you send electronic claims through RemoteLite? Do you electronically transmit prescription data? How about an eReferral system? These are all forms of outsourcing. You may be surprised – you’re already doing it! Professional billing vendors will have secured channels and systems for accessing your data as well as insurance for their services so that you can sleep soundly knowing your patient’s data is protected. If you are using a freelancer or other small business ask what types of precautions they take. Involve your office IT to make sure you are secure but definitely don’t discount getting quality assistance for your practice just because it involves outsourcing to a small business professional.
Outsourcing can give you better quality work for less out of pocket cost or quality work when you wouldn’t ultimately have that option because of cost. You can hire an experienced coding professional versus hoping your team files claims the right way or not filing them at all and reducing patient treatment plan acceptance. As a clinician you know sometimes you need to be flexible to get the work done right. Outsourcing is no exception!