Costly Mistakes Every Medical Billing Department Can Avoid

No business owner likes mistakes. Mistakes cost time and money to fix; they harm a company's reputation; they are bad news all around. Every private practice and healthcare clinic with an in-house billing department knows exactly what we're talking about.

Medical billing is arguably one of the most complex enterprises in all of healthcare administration. Medical coders and billers have tens of thousands of codes to worry about. The billing office has insurance carriers and patients to deal with. And of course, less than stellar EMR software doesn't make life any easier.

Codes, Codes, and More Codes

If you work in medical coding or billing, you know that the very thing that powers your employment can also be the bane of your existence. What is that thing? The medical code. And it's not just one code, it is tens of thousands of codes encapsulated in:

• ICD-10 codes
• ICD-11 codes
• CPT codes
• NPI numbers

All it takes is one code mistake to gum up the works. Some codes are outright wrong for whatever you are trying to bill for. Other times, you might not realize you could choose a more specific code. At any rate, you live and die by medical codes.

Under-Billing Patients

As long as we are talking about medical codes, we should probably mention the mistake of under-billing patients as a result of not fully understanding the coding system. Under-billing is not particularly unusual when a billing department has a fairly new staff without a lot of experience.

There is a lot to learn about medical billing that isn't taught in school. Much of what billers do in the real world is only learned on the job. So it's a mistake to operate a billing department without at least a few veterans to guide the way as supervisors.

Filing Claims in a Timely Manner

Private practices and clinics that handle medical billing in-house can actually lose money by not filing claims in a timely manner. As you know, claims have deadlines. Fail to meet a deadline and no reimbursement will be forthcoming.

For a busy private practice that has a hard enough time handling daily patient loads, billing may fall by the wayside. A lot of money could be on the line by the time the billing department realizes it has fallen behind.

Not filing in a timely manner is a very costly mistake. It is also one that can be avoided with the right policies in place and the resources to get the job done.

Do Not Forget to Check Insurance

Medical billing exists because we utilize private health insurance to pay medical bills. With that said, it stands to reason that private practices and clinics strive to routinely update their patients' insurance information. Most do, which is why the receptionist asks about your insurance every time you visit.

Though most private practices and clinics routinely check, not all do. This is yet another costly mistake. Continually sending bills to the wrong insurance company creates a logjam that eventually needs to be untangled. And when the billing department is up against deadlines, not getting it untangled fast enough only compounds the problem.

Here at Find-a-Code, there isn't much we can do to help private practices and healthcare clinics avoid making costly mistakes in the medical billing department. What we can do is provide fast, easy, and accurate code lookup through our online database. Medical billing codes are our business. It is what we do. Give our code lookup engine a try and see for yourself. We suspect you will be pleased with the results.

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