Many small medical practices still do their billing in-house. The success or failure of your billing team can make or break your practice as a business. However, it can be one of the most difficult functions your staff performs. You might have a crack team of billing analysts who are also great at collections. Chances are, though, that you will get better results with a company that specializes in billing and collecting millions of dollars a month for various clients.

In this article, we talk about the difference between in-house and outsourced billing, discuss the pros and cons of each and give you a look at the cost and savings associated with an outsourced solution. If you aren’t ready to hand over 100% of your billing operations, you can start with a hybrid approach, such as seeking assistance with collections and simplifying your billing system.

Whatever you decide, OmniMD has solutions that can help your front desk and back-office crew minimize mistakes, improve efficiency and increase patient satisfaction.

In-House Vs Outsourced Billing Comparison

In-house medical billing typically consists of billing clerks entering medical codes into billing software that interfaces with insurance companies and other payers. It also involves handling various aspects, such as reporting, required to close the revenue cycle.

When you outsource your medical billing, you or your business manager engages with a third-party company that specializes in billing, collections and other aspects of the revenue cycle. Ideally, this gives physicians and staff members more time to focus on patients and day-to-day operations.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the pros and cons of both options to give you a clearer picture of which one would work for you.

In-House Medical Billing

Many physicians or other practitioners decide to keep their billing in the hands of their staff. You may feel more comfortable having oversight over revenue and collections, and that’s understandable.

You may not want to trust a third party with your patient information or the part of your business responsible for bringing in the money. However, there are pros and cons of using EHR billing software versus customized billing solutions from a third party. You might be surprised what you would find if you crunched the numbers, taking into account the total cost and savings of each option. Additionally, you should consider factors such as accurate billing and timely entry of payment requests.

You may feel you have effective billers who enter data and collect payments efficiently. Therefore, switching to an outsourced solution may seem counterintuitive. With in-house personnel, you can walk down the hallway to check on a billing issue. When you outsource this function, you have to contact the billing company,

However, there’s a price for this convenience. When you pay billing analysts and billing clerks directly, you also have numerous administrative costs that are lower or nonexistent when you go with an outsourced billing provider.

Many practices are still feeling the crunch of government regulations that resulted in lower reimbursements. If you want to save money, you can’t just cut salaries or hire less qualified people. However, if you transition to an outsourced billing company, you may realize significant cost savings.

In-house billers often lack the necessary support to perform at their highest level on every task. Additionally, small offices may only have one or two people doing the billing. If someone quits or gets sick, you’re going to see a major reduction in revenue until you are once again fully staffed.

Pros and Cons of In-house Billing

Pros

Maintain control
Proximity
No need to invest in a new system

Cons

Administrative burden
Higher staffing and support costs
Subject to turnover and other employee challenges

Outsourced Medical Billing

By outsourcing your medical billing, you access the bench strength of a large billing department. So, if you are a small practice, you don’t have to worry about decreased revenue due to an employee falling ill, going on vacation or seeking other employment. Instead, there’s always someone to fill in the gap to keep your revenue stream steady.

When you hand your billing over to a third party, you pay a small percentage of your collections. Therefore, the company only gets paid if they bring in revenue. This motivates outsourced billing providers to work with maximum efficiency. An outsourced billing team, such as that available at OmniMD, is also going to work harder to recover aged collections.

Many physicians spend as much as an entire day on paperwork. That’s a lose-lose situation. Every minute a health care provider isn’t with a patient costs your practice money. Additionally, most doctors aren’t trained in billing and administrative tasks nor do they find the work satisfying. This may put your office at further risk of missing payments or letting a superbill fall through the cracks.

On the downside, patients and staff members may find using a third-party billing company inconvenient. Since outsourced billing takes place off premises, it requires extra effort to monitor and provide the necessary information needed to establish effective billing practices. Therefore, it’s important to choose a vendor with great collaboration and communication skills.

Choose a company with proactive business practices and automated reporting and other functions. Choosing a company such as OmniMD gives you virtually endless opportunities to customize your billing software and enjoy a transparent relationship that improves your revenue collections, billing efficiency and staff and patient satisfaction.

When considering both options, outsource billing appears to have fewer shortcomings than hiring billing clerks and analysts on premises. Plus, having less oversight can be both a pro and a con for physicians who want to concentrate on the practice, not paperwork.

Outsourcing Pros and Con

Pros

Reduces billing errors and denied claims
Improves cash flow
Ensures billing compliance
Maximizes use of office space for medical business
Puts physician focus back on patient care
Reduces employee count and administrative responsibilities
Improves revenue cycle management
No-cost regulatory-compliance
Update your billing technology and simplify data entry

Cons

Give up some control
Not located on premises

Cost Savings Example With Outsourced Billing

Billing specialists can make six-figure salaries, while it costs around $4,000 or less for billing services. There are many other costs that you can reduce or eliminate by outsourcing the billing for your practice, including the following:

Billing Staff Salaries
Billing Software Cost
Hardware costs
Continued Education Training Cost (will be less when you outsource)
Ancillary Costs
(Office Space/Office Supplies, Patient Statements, Others)

Carrying collections in the form of bad debt is a reality for many practices. When you outsource your billing, you gain access to persistent collections specialists. While in-house collection efforts typically yield a 60% collection rate, that figure jumps to 68% when you partner with an effective medical billing provider.

Let’s say you have $2.5 million in uncollected debt. Your in-house collections team may recover $1.5 million, or 60% of the debt. Meanwhile, focused specialists at a third-party provider might collect $1.7 million, or 68% of bad debt that otherwise becomes a write-off.
Taking a Hybrid Approach

There may be sensitive accounts or services that you want to bill for directly. It’s perfectly acceptable and you can achieve the same boost in collections and savings while keeping a portion of the billing in-house. Find a company that will work with you to meet the needs of your practice.

Are You Shopping for Billing Solutions for a Billing Company?</h3/>

OmniMD also provides billing solutions for billing companies. If you want to implement intuitive, consistent forms for all of your medical billing clients, partner with our team for end-to-end medical billing services that allow your staff to manage all your customers with a single sign-on. OmniMD has your solution. We will integrate data from all of your legacy systems, including EHR, Practice Management, and Patient Portals.

Want to know why more physicians and practices choose OmniMD? Request a demo today!

In this guide to patient satisfaction, we’ll take a look at some of the most common pain points for patients and how you can address them. Clients are more demanding than ever as their financial burden increases, and concerns over the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 make patients reluctant to go to a medical provider, even for urgent care. So, the more your practice can do to ease the minds of patients and keep interactions positive, the better patient satisfaction and outcomes will be.

You can prevent your loyal patients from changing service providers by eliminating common pain points. By addressing the following issues, you can provide convenient, seamless, and quality medical care that delights your clients:

• Billing concerns
• Inefficient appointment setting
• Lack of automation for new patient registration
• Poor communications of diagnostic, treatment, and medication information

Let’s start with some high-level goals.

High-Level Goals to Improve Patient Satisfaction

As you formulate a plan to tackle each of the challenges below, keep the following high-level goals in mind:

• Strive to improve access to care and meet patients online for critical communication.
• Listen to what your patients tell you when diagnosing problems with satisfaction at your practice, and conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys to keep on top of your client’s changing needs.
• Talk to your healthcare professionals to find out what they need to access information and streamline the treatment process.
• Adopt technology, such as OmniMD, that allows your team to create an effective virtual experience during treatment, appointment setting, follow-up care, and other touchpoints.
• Offer training for medical professionals new to virtual communication.
• Place your patient at the center of your business and work everything us around them.

Billing Concerns and Solutions

Efficient billing practices help you enter claims to payers quickly for a faster revenue turnaround. They also make life easier for patients, who ultimately want to know how much the service will cost. Too often, patients are unable to get a straight answer regarding billing prior to a visit. In many ways, this is driven by unknown factors that come up during an examination. However, there are still several things you can do to address billing concerns.

To improve patient satisfaction when it comes to billing, consider the following suggestions:

• Adopt technology that includes a patient portal. This technology gives patients access to their information, sends appointment reminders, and allows you to communicate with clients efficiently. By including an FAQ section and glossary describing billing codes, you can help them understand the billing without calling your office.
• Add a chat feature to make it easy for patients to ask questions about their procedures. Patients often have questions about their financial responsibility since bills typically contain multiple payment amounts. Giving them a lifeline as they examine the bill can help your patients remain calm and cool while working to understand the billing process.
• Train your billing team to promptly answer customer questions and politely address complaints.
• When it comes right down to it, patients tend to be more trusting of medical procedures than the billing process. You can maintain consistent pricing and educate each patient on the cost of service while they’re still in the office. This approach avoids misunderstandings and hard feelings.

OmniMD Medical Billing Software and Medical Billing Services offer a comprehensive solution that makes it easy to verify insurance eligibility, simplify your billing template, send bills and accept payments electronically, and improve your patient satisfaction rates through an effective billing process.

Patients also need understanding and better communication when it comes to appointment scheduling, discussed in the next section.

Appointment Scheduling Pain Points and Solutions

Taking an appointment may seem simple. However, there are several factors that make the process complicated. It only takes one emergency visit to derail appointments for the rest of the day for one or more providers. With the right scheduling software, you can set better expectations for wait times and move things around more easily when necessary.

If your front desk still uses an appointment book to manage appointments, you’re missing out on the functionality of automated appointment setting software.

Here are a few questions to help you determine whether your appointment setting technology meets the needs of your front desk team and patients:

• Does your system allow patients to schedule their own appointments online?
• Does your appointment software automatically schedule reminders that reach clients via text, email, or their preferred communication channel?
• Can your staff see appointments for each provider at a glance?
• How easy is it to create an appointment in your current appointment scheduling system?

Automation does more than make it easier to set appointments and check patients in. Patients can choose the right professional to help them with their particular condition. Combined with a call center that can manage appointments after hours, appointment setting software can streamline the front desk experience.

Best of all, you can customize your settings to allow for same-day appointments for emergencies and access reporting that shows counts for various procedures and appointment times by day, week, or month.

Medical appointment software adds a ton of value to your practice, including:

• Setting and managing recurring appointments
• Printing schedules for physicians and other practitioners
• Tracking activity to improve wait times and other metrics that boost patient satisfaction
• Accessing one-click co-pay acceptance to improve your revenue stream

So, making the right choice when it comes to your medical appointment software can mean the difference between a waiting room full of annoyed patients and efficient appointment-setting practices that make your patient’s loyal customers.

New Patient Registration Improvements

Patients often complain about the new patient registration process for the following reasons:

• Too many forms
• Duplicate information on forms
• Takes up too much time during the office visit

With the right automation tools, you can streamline the new patient registration process by moving it online. Patients should not have to re-enter their name, insurance information, and contact information on multiple forms.

Paper-free new patient processing makes sense. It can also help you save time and money and alleviate patient dissatisfaction. Explore the solutions offered by OmniMD, such as pre-visit data capture, context-aware forms, and data validation for consistent data.

Making Diagnostics, Reports, and Medication Information Available

Implementing a patient portal allows your clients to retrieve prescription information, diagnostics results, and other reports impacting their health. Making this information available online can also help healthcare providers prioritize urgent cases. By improving medical care and outcomes, online diagnostic tools, reporting, and medication management further improve customer satisfaction.

Providing immediate access to lab results can help practitioners come to a conclusive, accurate diagnosis faster. This means that the patient receives the right treatment earlier in the progression of diseases and disorders.

After treatment, patients may have questions regarding symptoms, complications, and other concerns that come up during the recovery process. Allowing patients to send a message directly in the patient portal can provide updated information for physicians looking to recommend additional treatment or alleviate patient concerns. Alternately, limited engagement can slow recovery periods and put the patient at risk.

Find out how vigorous engagement with patients through a patient portal facilitates care transitions such as diagnosis, treatment, and aftercare.

Request a demo today!

OmniMD offers numerous tools that can help your practice retain patients through improved engagement. Contact us today for a free consultation on how our tools can streamline your practice.