Understanding The Medical Billing Process

Medical billing is a fantastic addition to medical practices all across the world.

Before the introduction of medical billing services, medical practices were resigned to having a whole team of staff focusing on incoming and outgoing invoices; thanks to medical billing, they simply need a single person to send the payments off and wait for them to be collected. It is a great, fantastic, and innovative addition to an ordinarily grueling and tiresome process.

Staff is alleviated of a burden and medical practitioners can focus their attention on areas that need work. Still, the medical process despite its many benefits, for some, can be very confusing, the medical billing process does to a certain extent require painstaking research to understand and implement it, but once you have learned the process and have mastered it you will find that it is very simple and that you can make the most out of it.

The first thing you will want to do is contact a medical billing service and make inquiries about how much their services cost – it is often not very much – and its price can be discounted heavily. You will ordinarily pay a percentage from your annual income, or a subscription fee. By using these solutions your practice will become more effective, and more efficient.

Here is how the medical billing process works.

Register Patients

The first step in the medical billing process is to register the patients. To register the patients you will need to fill out their insurance details and pass it over to the medical billing service you have chosen to use. Registering your patients requires a consent form and a waiver being signed by the patient, otherwise, they can not have their details passed on to these companies.

You must ensure your patients are fully covered by medical insurance otherwise there is little point in passing their details, as they will not be able to pay the medical fee. That is why you should always make the relevant inquiries into your patient’s insurance before treating them, as when surgeries do not, they get a nasty surprise and find out that their patient cannot pay for their medical fees. That is why many hospitals will have you pay before you are treated or ask for your insurance details before you are treated or during, and if you cannot pay then they will likely not treat you or dismiss you.

This is also why medical billing services are great as it ensures that the patient is fully covered by insurance and that they can pay for the necessary medical fees, which means no surprises or lost revenue for medical practices. As seen at integritybillingco.com, substance abuse facilities can greatly benefit from medical billing services to ensure proper payment for their services as well. Not only does this protect the medical practice, but it also protects the patient from incurring massive medical bills that they cannot afford.

Patient Check-In ‘n’ Out

When the patients arrive you will want to check them in and out; to do this, check their insurance paperwork and identification documents as referenced in the paragraph above. Once you have verified their identity and their medical care provider then you can allow them to see the doctor. You must make sure that you always check them in and out and make sure that you provide them with the proper documents and contracts to ensure their honesty and make sure that your surgery does not fall victim to fraud.

Once you have checked them in, they see the doctor, then you check them out. The check out process consists of signing paperwork to say they have seen the doctor and are happy to pay; the verification process comes first, then payment after. Once they have seen the doctor you can file for the paperwork to say that they have, and they can verify this with their signature and name printed. Once you have the paperwork to say that they have seen the doctor you can transmit it to your medical billing service provider and get started with the next step.

Transmit Claim

Once you have the finished paperwork you must check the claim for any problems and make sure that you do the thorough evaluation before sending it off. The next step is to transmit the claim which in accordance with HIPAA rules must be sent electronically. You send it directly to your medical billing service so they can have a look at the claim and do their checks on their end. Once they have done their checks, they will report back to you and let you know if it was successful or not.

The remainder of the balance that will not be paid by insurance will go directly to the patient for them to make payment directly to you, as insurance will not cover every single aspect of the payment and will leave a little bit unpaid, as is completely normal. So there it is, the billing process made easy.

Make sure you find a reputable and respectable medical billing provider to prevent yourself from experiencing any problems or difficulties, as is not uncommon with unscrupulous providers and medical professionals.