Medical doctors have long been plagued by extended hours and stressful situations. Because of this, most physicians do not have the time to work on the day-to-day issues involved in running a successful medical practice such as billing and collections. Even offices that employ a small staff to take care of operations are not always able to find the appropriate personnel to take on the responsibilities of sending out invoices for services or calling to follow-up with patients if a bill should happen to go beyond thirty days overdue. This dilemma has opened up a very competitive niche market for services that take this stress off the hands of physicians. The medical billing service market is one of the fastest growing industries that fall within the medical-related fields. These services help physicians cut costs, maximize receipts and allow them to do what they have been trained to do; namely, practice medicine.

Quality medical billing services take care of the daily tasks related to receivables, collections, insurance claims submissions and payment tracking as well as follow-ups for non-paid and rejected claims. By providing this service the physician’s office is freed of the responsibilities associated with those items. In turn, the stress of these tasks is reduced and the office staff is freed up to concentrate on the patients.

The benefits of outsourcing the responsibilities associated with the billing and claims processes are multi-fold. The most obvious of these are initial savings generated in the hours that are no longer dedicated to these areas. Utilizing staff for billing also requires investment in hardware and software technology as well as postage. These extras are eliminated through the use of a medical claims billing service.

One of the most inviting motives for hiring an external billing service is financial privacy. Most individuals prefer to keep how much money they make to themselves. If a physician utilizes his office staff for billing, claims and collections, the privacy that she or he would normally have regarding income could be compromised. Reputable medical billing services keep this information completely private, thereby eliminating the possibility of it becoming public knowledge.

In general, there are three types of services. Fee per claim services base their payment structure on each claim that is processed. The fees are usually from $1.25 up to $5.00 per claim dependent upon which service is utilized. For practices with a low volume of billing receipts and claims, this service is the most obvious choice.

Fifty-Fifty billing services operate by installing computers in the physician’s office, which allows the office staff to provide half of the process using the same software and equipment that the billing service uses. The billing company provides the other half of these services. The biggest advantage to this is the cost as compared to using a full service company.

Full service billing agencies take on the full responsibility of billing, claims and receipts. By doing this, the physician’s office is completely freed of all duties associated with those processes. Obviously, the cost will be more substantial, but for an office that has a heavy billing and claims load, this cost is offset by the amount of time that is saved for billing and follow-up and the stress associated with those tasks.

One of a physician’s worst nightmares is the act of collecting overdue bills. Generally, dependent upon the size of the office, this is handed off to the office staff. The stress of calling a patient to collect on an overdue bill is high enough, enforcing the collection not only raises that stress but causes more financial strain on the practice. Medical billing services take this out of the hands of the physician and staff members and take care of the act of collections, either by themselves or through an affiliated collection agency. 

Selecting a medical billing service is not an easy task; however, with the right information physicians can ask the right questions and find a billing agency suitable to his or her needs. The first question to answer in this search is “How large is my practice?” The medical billing service chosen should match well with the size of the physician’s office. Secondly, avoid contracts that are long-term or heavily binding. Dropping a service when it is no longer needed is next to impossible when a contract stipulates long-term service. When interviewing the owners of billing services, ask for references. If a medical billing service cannot provide a long list of satisfied clients, it’s time to look elsewhere.

Medical billing services fill a growing need for physician’s that are already overworked. These services can provide the tools necessary for a physician’s practice to flourish without the unnecessary burden of billings, claims and collections.