How Crucial are Cardiology Billing Specialists during Reporting and Following-Up Cardiology Medical Bills?

In the last few years, cardiology has had to manage with negligible fee increase while having to cope up with numerous coding and billing changes. While cardiologists may have seen an increase of 1 to 2 percent increase in Medicare’s fees, they have had put up with reduction in medical reimbursements beyond permissible limits. To a large extent, these practice-related medical reimbursements reductions could have been triggered by a series of relentless medical billing and coding changes that have seemingly been more challenging than ever before.

It all began around 2009 when codes for implanted devices were replaced with an entire set of new codes. Notable among such revolutionary codes were the ones that would be applied specifically to internet (remote) device checks, codes for devices with leads in 3 chambers, ICM device follow-up codes, and codes for per procedural checks. While this coding overhaul may have helped streamline Cardiology Billing, cardiologists’ medical billing has not been fully able to decipher them to their best advantage.

Quite parallel to these intermittent cardiology coding revisions, 30 and 90 day global periods too have been active for follow-up for certain devices. What is more, the new codes are specific to either an interrogation evaluation or a reprogramming evaluation without being inquisitive of the happening of reprogramming. It is quite possible that cardiology practices may have found cardiology coding and billing rather difficult.

Interestingly, wearable cardiac telemetry devices too have been assigned specific codes, and it is impossible to assign unlisted codes that previously could be applied with slight modification. Moreover, these wearable cardiac telemetry devices are equally susceptible to complication of global periods as in the case of certain other cardiac devices. Yet again, cardiologists’ medical billing and coding may have found this coding-specificity an unusual thing.

Not least of them all, bundling multiple procedures under a single has limited cardiologists’ ability to breakdown a larger service into smaller components. As a result, insurance payors can now insist on bundling an echo with both a Doppler and color flow and a stress flow into a single and comprehensive CPT code. While this may have reduced multiple coding and billing, it certainly has limited cardiologists’ ability to maximize revenues from breaking down larger services into smaller components.

While Cardiology Medical Billing has already been affected by these monumental changes, cardiologists may still face harder challenges during reporting and insurance follow-up under the ensuing ICD-10 billing and coding regime. With the possibility of coding specificity, bundling, and billing and coding restrictions getting magnified even more, cardiologists may well have look beyond conservative cardiology medical billing practices. Hence, cardiology medical coding and billing, integrated with enhanced coding compliance, electronic processes, and competent billing practices could help measure up to challenges in insurance reporting and follow-up.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com has verifiable success as a leading and progressive medical billing consortium, more so for cardiology billing. Our cardiology medical billing mediation has been backed with deployment of experienced, techno-savvy, and competent medical billing specialists. As a result cardiologists across the 50 states in the U.S. can look forward to engaging medical specialists who have evolved with cardiology medical billing challenges.

How to Prevent Shrinking Bottom-Line with Streamlined Cardiology Billing Process?

Cardiologists are reported to have been writing off a considerable chunk of medical bills that could otherwise have been realized if they had a more responsible cardiology medical billing in place. If the industry sources are to be believed, over 20 percent of claims are left unrealized. What is even more worrying is that Account Receivables too are languishing in the basket for more than 60 days! As a result, cardiologists bottom-line has constantly been sinking, making it hard to sustain effective and efficient cardiology services. While cardiology billing requirements may have more demanding, they are not something that cannot be overcome with streamlined Cardiology Billing Process. And, when we mean streamlined billing process, there ought to be an ideal integration of cardiology medical billing specialists, technologies, processes and RCM solutions aimed at bringing down revenues losses to negligible percentage.

• Educating Cardiology Billers
  
  Significant advances have been made in cardiology billing system in the recent, and it is possible that your cardiology medical billing staff may not be knowledgeable of current billing system. Hence, educating cardiology medical billing specialists with latest billing system is the primary step in streamlining cardiology billing process.
  
• Adapting to technologic advancements
  
  Second, you have the privileges of technologic advancements in cardiology coding and billing. It is remarkable how these technologic advancements have redefined cardiology billing – automation of routine tasks, and reminders when follow-ups are required; time management in resolving complex billing cases and denials; enabling collection improvement and reduction in A/R. Therefore, coding and billing software built on ASP model may possible accomplish such critical tasks.


• Improving processes
  Third, processes to ensure:
  
  
  • Claims are submitted the same day of charge entry is entered; applying payments fast: electronically for carriers with automatic reconciliation and, for others, using procedures optimized for each payer.
  • Filing secondary claims—with electronic EOB attached—on the same day payments are applied from the primary payer.
  • Queuing up denials and other payer responses to be followed up automatically by A/R team
  • Electronic monitoring of  patient and procedure data, eligibility, specifics of coverage, submitted claims, electronic adjudication of  claims, negotiation of electronic remittance, and automated posting to line items on the original claim submission
• Devising Revenue Cycle Management
  
  Last, Revenue Cycle Management integrated with complete revenue cycle process could go a long way in ensuring increased collections, minimize A/R days, and more importantly control and enhance clinical and operational efficiency.

This entire act of streamlining cardiology medical billing may require considerable time and resources. And cardiologists, who are already hit by revenue erosions, may be low in morale. That is why it is advisable to leverage with external billing companies that can transform or streamline your entire cardiology billing within your budgetary constraints. 

Medicalbillersandcoders.com has a credible history of sourcing and deploying medical billing resources within the budgetary constraints of diverse health care disciplines across the 50 states in the U.S. And, at time when streamlining cardiology medical billing is high on the minds of every cardiologist, we promise to leverage and streamline their cardiology coding, billing, and follow-up with our broad  resource-base, who are trained and acquainted with the most modern cardiology billing practices, systems, and processes.

Are Orthopedics Justified in Embracing HIPAA Compliant Orthopedic Billing to Boost Their Reimbursement

Reimbursements have generally been tight recently for orthopedics – Medicare cuts, shrinking fee schedules, increased technology intervention in medical billing, and a multi-payer environment that is more vigilant than ever have really made it tough for orthopedics to realize their reimbursements to the maximum. But amidst these monumental challenges, HIPAA compliant clinical and operational management may still offer avenues to keep reimbursements level above average. Thus, orthopedics across the U.S. are beginning to embrace technology-driven HIPAA compliant Orthopedic Billing to offset the impact of a series of restrictive impositions on medical billing.

The significant about HIPAA compliance is that it can not only endorse orthopedics as being responsive to patient privacy and security but also entitle them to incentives for showing up as responsible partners in effective and efficient health care delivery. Moreover, payors perceive HIPAA compliance to be yardstick for measuring orthopedics’ integrity for medical billing. Therefore, HIPAA compliant Orthopedic Medical Billing may just be the factor that can create a sense of trust among your payors. But HIPAA compliance needs to planned and executed in a way that best suits individual practitioners or hospitals; HIPAA compliance cannot be generalized even though you happen to be in the same discipline as orthopedics. The factors that will need to be taken care of while migrating to HIPAA compliant orthopedic medical billing are:

• Ensuring Protected Health Information (PHI) : HIPAA compliance requires you to protect health information, which may include anything that can be used to identify an individual and any information shared with other health care providers or clearinghouses in any media (digital, verbal, recorded voice, faxed, printed, or written).
  
  
• Adhering to Principles of HIPAA : While HIPAA may allow smooth flow of PHI for healthcare operations subject to patient’s consent, it is deemed violation of HIPAA compliance if you disseminate PHI for purposes other than treatment, payment, care quality assessment, competence review training, accreditation, insurance rating, auditing, and legal procedures
  
  
• Following HIPAA Implementation Process : HIPAA implementation need necessarily include both pre-emptive and retroactive controls and have process, technology, and personnel aspects.
  
• Sourcing right Technology for HIPAA Compliance : HIPAA compliance needs to be served with the right technology that can assure physical data center security, network security, and data security
  
  
• Being enabled role based access control (RBAC) : Because health care data under HIPAA compliance may accessed by multiple stakeholders across the clinical delivery system, it is important that data is made available based on Role Based Access Control (RBAC) to control the extent of data that may be shared with each of such stakeholders.

Because of interplay of these multiple factors in HIPAA compliant orthopedic clinical and medical billing operations, providers may have look beyond internal competence and outsource technology enabled HIPAA-compliant clinical and medical billing implementation. Medicalbillersandcoders.com offers to ease complexities during as critical an implementation as HIPAA compliant orthopedic medical billing. Our affiliation with experienced, competent, and credible orthopedic medical billing resources should provide the right choice of expertise to have your medical billing infused with HIPAA compliance standards.

Relevance of Outsourced Medical Billing as Hospitals’ Rely More on Technology to Elevate Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction has always been the yardstick for operational success, and hospitals have tried out novel ways to keep patient experience enriched. While physicians’ skills have primarily been pivotal, technology too has helped considerably. And, technology has begun to be so significant that hospitals seem to have accepted them to indispensable in enhancing overall patient satisfaction, comply with evolving industry regulations, and being competitively ahead. As growing number of hospitals across the U.S. are beginning to embrace technology to elevate patient satisfaction, they are realizing the need to integrate clinical activities with medical billing activities to arrive at mutually beneficial equation – patient satisfaction that promotes practice revenues. Therefore, they may have to leverage with outsourced hospital medical billing that are integrated with clinical and operational features.

When confronted with the question of finding technology that is clinically and operationally dependable, integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems come to be recognized as the most reliable technology platforms. EHR systems integrated with Practice Management Systems (PMS), Clinical Decision Support Systems, and Patient Communication Network Systems can create both clinical and practice efficiencies, and promote opportunities for enhanced patient access to data and patient engagement. The combined impact of these features may significantly improve patient satisfaction as:

• Patients perceive them to be part of improved care system: Experience has shown that patients value doctors who are progressively tech-savvy. It is interesting to note that around 75 percent of U.S. population associate technology-inclusion with better care.
  
• It would enable convenient access to scheduling and communication through patient portals; patients would appreciate the ease and convenience of online tools that allow them to schedule appointments, request for appointments, ask questions, and more.
  
• There would be swift prescriptions with eRx; patients will benefit from the efficiencies created by e-prescribing capabilities within the EHR. With e-prescribing, a prescription is sent to the pharmacy as soon as the provider prescribes it, which means patients can avail their medications faster. E-prescribing also eliminates the need for patients carry and present paper prescription.
  
• EHR solutions offer the capability to automate email appointment reminders, which will help patients remember their appointments and show up on time.
  
  There would be enhanced clinical efficiency; clinical decision support tools and clinical protocol compliance tracking tools within EHR systems can help providers enhance the care they deliver to patients.
  
• Last, but most significant, robust EHR system can make medical billing and coding accurate and compliant with coding and billing conventions, thereby enabling hospitals show up as Meaningful Compliant with HIPAA practices and maximize reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial health insurance payors.

For a considerable segment of hospitals that are yet to migrate to full-pledged technology-defined clinical care delivery, it might seem a daunting task. Thus, they may have been drive to outsource medical billing services integrated with EHR platforms. Medicalbillersandcoders.com offers them the right window for sourcing resources (medical billers and coders) that are skillful, tech-savvy, and versatile enough to balance hospitals’ primary concern of patient satisfaction and operational success.

Improved and Advanced Billing Processes Help in Increasing Physicians’ Revenue

Medical practices and hospitals are required to deal with the challenging task of getting their due payments. The rules and procedures governing the payments have become increasingly complex and confusing, resulting in greater denials, lost claims or underpayments. Manual processes human errors and claims submission can be time consuming and slow down the claim process. Sophisticated electronic Medical Billing and Coding processes and advanced practice management software solutions can help improve the billing process and contribute towards increased physician revenue.

How do advanced billing processes help in improving revenue?

• Accuracy: Research conducted in Medicare as well as Medicaid centers suggests that hospitals routinely experience revenue leakage due to lost or denied claims. Of the 30 percent lost or denied claims, approximately 60 percent are never resubmitted. Practices and hospitals also fail to collect approximately 18 percent of the claims. It is therefore extremely critical for hospitals to ensure accurate submission of claims in the first instance. Sophisticated billing processes and technological tools can help in identifying inherent reasons for denials. Specialized software can identify claims that may be denied and robust procedural rules can ensure scrubbing of the claims.
  
  
• Faster collections and greater control: Sophisticated billing software is constantly updated and can also track denial trends to identify issues and improve the collection rates. Patient billing and Revenue Cycle Management Software can also easily manage complex payer contracts so as to ensure accurate collections. The different software tools can also help in tracking of patient co pays as well as deductibles.
  
  
• Improved collection with specific focus on accounts receivable management: The streamlined processes and advanced technological tools can ensure that practices achieve accuracy in billing and coding along with improved first time resolution rate. With faster and improved collections practices can concentrate on improving cash flow through aggressive follow-up on accounts receivables.

• Improved practice management: Advanced software solutions also allow practices and hospitals to take benefit of customized reporting feature. This can allow practices and hospitals to get reports of specific data, carefully track payments and increase overall efficiency within the organization. Practices can also forecast the future collections and analyze existing and future practice performance. Advanced data mining and reporting features can support critical decision making and help the management in exercising greater control over the practice or hospital performance.
  
  
• Improved patient satisfaction: Advanced billing processes ensure that all critical information is accurately handled and complete clarity is maintained regarding the billing practices of the hospital. In such a scenario the practices and hospitals can concentrate on providing the best possible medical care to the patients and patients are guaranteed of transparency and clarity.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com (MBC) is a recognized organization with a network of highly experienced coders and billers that have consistently exceeded industry benchmarks with their sophisticated solutions. Through a unique combination of highly trained professionals, systematized processes as well as proven software solutions, MBC helps physicians, practices and hospitals to improve their revenue and enjoy enhanced cash flows.