How Streamlined Medical Billing Protocols Can Help Fight Challenges for Hospitals in 2014?

Not just small practices but hospitals in the US are also facing the pressure caused by healthcare reforms. Many hospitals are closing down, merging with bigger hospitals or experiencing major financial problems. It is being expected that 2014 will also bring various challenges for hospitals in the US for which, they will have to be prepared.

Challenges to be faced by hospitals in 2014:

• Strong preparation will be required by hospitals for ICD-10 that will come into effect this year. As per a study, various hospitals are moderately to very confident of meeting the deadline; however, some hospitals noted risks to successful implementation of the new coding system like, issues related to working with technology vendors and payers and successful adoption of EHRs

• Hospitals might face challenges under health insurance exchanges such as, low reimbursement under the exchanges, signing patients up for exchanges and dealing with effects of high-deductible plans. A huge collection burden might be placed on hospitals, forcing the management to upgrade collection capabilities. However, if they are well prepared, they will be able to reduce bad debt if high-cost patients will be gaining coverage under the exchanges

• Hospitals will have to revive their strategic plans and decide on how many projects they will be able to complete with their current resources

• Hospitals will have to train physicians, maintain quality clinical care because the small supply of primary care physicians will not be enough to fulfil high demands for specialists

• In 2014, non-profit hospitals will have to take care of charity care, especially with newly insured patients

• Community hospitals will have to decide if clinical affiliations should be formed or if specialized services should be left to advanced providers

How can hospitals handle these challenges?

With so many challenges, hospitals are finding it difficult to balance between hospital billing, coding, physician training, EHR implementation, HIPAA and so on. These challenges are especially daunting for small rural hospitals that face lack of staff and money.

A large number of hospitals are outsourcing billing and coding tasks in order to ensure efficiency in revenue cycle management. By streamlining, they are not only strengthening cash flow of their hospital but also improving the level of patient satisfaction.

By hiring a billing partner, hospitals are eliminating the headache of balancing patient care and billing amidst lack of skilled staff. Since a medical billing company will make use of latest technology to handle billing tasks, hospitals won’t have to invest in health IT.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com has been offering medical billing services to various hospitals across the US. We have the largest consortium of billers and coders who are experts at handling RCM, denial management, consultancy for large as well as small hospitals. Our well-trained team can handle all your hospitalist medical billing requirements. At MBC, we strive to streamline billing tasks to ensure improved cash flow and enhanced patient satisfaction for hospitals. While our team handles the challenges, your hospital can concentrate on provision of quality patient care.