Recent research has revealed that around 55% of medical bills in the United States include errors. With the surge in Electronic Health Records, more and more practices are experiencing errors in their medical billing workflows and this is expected to increase over time.
One of the main reasons for this predicament is the fact that practices spend more time implementing billing systems and less time in training their staff on how to use them effectively and accurately.
Some simple steps can ensure accuracy in the process of Medical Billing and practices can avoid costly errors that negatively affect them as well as their patients.
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Care providers can reduce the number of errors by taking responsibility for basic patient information such as their demographic information, for example their address and date of birth etc.
In order to minimize medical billing related errors, care providers need to make sure that they check the patients’ information regardless of whether the patient is returning or new. Sometimes, providers use the same information for returning patients because they feel that the same information that they had used in the system still applies. This is where they can be wrong because during this time, details of the patients insurance, policies and terms of use or items such as allowed benefits and co-payments could have been changed. Communication and verification of information with the insurance is key.
It is imperative for care providers to cautiously verify that they enter the right diagnostic and procedural codes. This is because if the wrong code is entered, the claim will most likely be rejected as the selected code will not justify the medical treatment. Care providers should also make sure that their staff knows how to work with the codes. If practices spend some time training their staff – these errors can be substantially reduced.
There have been cases where major problems have occurred due to double-billing. Also, bills can be submitted for tests which have been moved to another date of have been cancelled altogether. Instances like these, requires stringent checking by the billing team to ensure accuracy.
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Overall, with the industry moving towards an era where everything is done electronically, it might be the best time to change your gear and implement an Electronic Health Records system at your practice. A comprehensive solution which streamlines your clinical, administrative and financial workflows will work wonders for your practice.
