Medical billing software enables medical practitioners to gain greater control over the operation of their practice from patient onboarding to claims tracking.
Medical billing software enables you to enhance the patient experience while at the same time providing valuable insights into the financial workings of your practice.
But those are just a few of the benefits of medical billing software.
16 Benefits Of Medical Billing Software
Every aspect of your medical practice can benefit from today’s best medical billing software as the following list indicates.
1: Medical billing software allows you to automate the invoicing and claims process.
Doctors have enough to worry about these days without also having to sweat over invoicing. Medical billing software automates the invoice generation and claims process, saving you time and reducing errors. The same software can alert you when an invoice is in arrears and can generate a reminder for the patient or their insurance company.
2: Medical billing software simplifies and expands access to records.
Medical billing software enables authorized access from anywhere you can get an internet connection. So, if you are attending a medical convention across the country and a serious issue arises regarding a patient, you can log into the medical billing software from wherever you are and help expedite a resolution.
3: Medical billing software improves patient interactions.
When staff do not have access to a patient’s complete medical records, it can lead to uncomfortable interactions. Patients want answers to their questions regardless of whether staff members remember the particulars of their situation or not. Robust medical billing software systems put virtually every aspect of a patient’s history right at your fingertips.
4: Medical billing software reduces paperwork.
The promise of the paperless office has been little more than an empty promise for decades now (1). But with the right medical billing software, it is not only possible but likely that you will see a significant reduction in paper records generated by your practice. That will not only reduce paper costs, but the costs of storing and managing those records as well (2).
5: Medical billing software improves office efficiency.
Once the EHR or EMR software is integrated with your billing and other processes, there is no need to keep re-entering basic information. This can have a dramatic effect on office efficiency. Reducing the number of data transfer episodes also greatly reduces the number of possible human errors that can occur. That, too, has a positive effect on efficiency.
6: Medical billing software enables you to track follow-up appointments.
In a busy practice, it is not uncommon for patients to forget about follow-up visits. It is also not uncommon for staff to forget to remind patients about pending follow-up visits. Medical billing software can remove the possibility of these costly oversights by generating automatic reminders to patients and providing a way for them to acknowledge the reminder.
7: Medical billing software helps you save money.
Paying people to track down and correct errors, to keep patient records up to date, and to create invoices costs money. Paying for their health insurance, social security, and other benefits costs money. And training them costs money (3). Then, if they decide to move on, you have to start over with someone else. Medical billing software is a more cost-effective way to improve your practice.
8: Medical billing software ensures your bills are accurate.
It is not unusual for healthcare providers to overlook some aspect of treatment when billing for their services. Medical billing software uses patient histories to alert you to likely oversights or draw attention to treatment inconsistencies that may indicate an error. In addition, most will scrub a claim for HIPAA, CCI, and other errors prior to submission, ensuring a higher rate of claim acceptance.
9: Medical billing software reduces authorization errors.
It is only too common for a claim to be denied because the authorization for a service has expired, or agreed-upon service levels have been exceeded. Medical billing software can alert you to pending authorization cutoffs in a timely fashion. That way, the issue can be resolved before it creates tension between doctor and patient, or negatively impacts the efficiency of your practice.
10: Medical billing software reduce overall error rates.
Medical coding is a difficult job, and most coders are excellent at what they do. But mistakes can and do happen, even to the best of us. Because there are literally thousands of different medical codes today, errors can easily be overlooked. The right medical billing software will draw attention to likely errors, thereby elevating efficiency and profitability.
11: Medical billing software helps reduce coding errors.
Medical coding (4) errors are a major cause of lost income. They are also often responsible for the development of adversarial relationships between doctors and their patients. Coding inconsistencies can lead to incorrect billing, denied claims, lawsuits, lost time trying to track down the error, and lost patients. Medical billing software alerts you to coding inconsistencies, so errors are minimized.
12: Medical billing software makes it easier to track claims.
Sometimes denied claims are the result of coding errors. Other times, they are the result of incorrect patient information. Without medical billing software you may even be unaware a claim has been denied until payment fails to show up on the books. Medical billing software can alert you to a denied claim, help you correct the issue, and guide you through the resubmission process.
13: Medical billing software makes it easy to update patient information.
Without medical billing software, keeping patient information up to date can be a hassle. Patients may move without informing anyone in the doctor’s office. That can lead to billing problems, collection agencies getting involved, and things devolving into acrimony. Medical billing software enables patients to login from wherever they are and update their information in a timely fashion.
14: Medical billing software improves transparency.
The complexity of billing for healthcare services can boggle the mind (5)(6) and tends to lead to mistrust among patients. When you integrate your billing services with your EHR or EMR software, the entire process is simplified, medical coding errors are reduced, and cleaner bills are issued that patients can actually understand. This enhanced transparency builds a better doctor/patient relationships.
15: Medical billing software improves the patient experience.
Over the past 20 years, the healthcare focus has shifted toward enhancing the patient experience. Numerous forces are driving this movement, including a need to reduce malpractice costs, pressure to do a better job of patient retention, the prevalence of the CAHPS Health Plan Survey (7), and the dictates of the ACA (8). Medical billing software can help in all these areas.
16: Medical billing software enhances interoperability.
The interoperability of EHR systems enables relevant information to be securely shared with multiple providers. This interoperability enables healthcare providers at every level to coordinate their efforts in a way never before possible. That, in turn, leads to a higher level of patient care and greater patient safety (since there are no mysteries regarding what a patient might or might not be taking).
Conclusion
The amount of data produced by the modern medical practice can be daunting. Keeping track of it all and ensuring accurate and timely billing is the job of today’s medical billing software. If you would like to simplify your bookkeeping, increase the profitability of your practice and enhance the customer experience consider today’s medical billing software.