6 Benefits of Outsourcing Hospital ER Billing

billing coding

One of the busiest departments in health care is the Emergency Department. The majority of life-and-death cases occur there. Managing patient care, resupply, and organization all take up a lot of the time of your doctors, nurses, and administrators.

You may consider outsourcing your billing if you want to lighten the hospital’s workload. Irrespective of how large your hospital or emergency department is, billing and coding are demanding, time-consuming tasks. Not only can outsourcing the emergency physician billing save you time, but it can also save you money and legal/regulatory headaches as well.

1. Improved focus

The Emergency Room at your hospital receives a steady stream of patients needing medical attention. How can your doctors and nurses manage finances while caring for patients? In a hospital-based environment, the providers work as employees and are not involved in financial matters most of the time. So shouldn’t the administrators handle everything?

The emergency care department is tasked with improving its clinical and administrative efficiency, which is important to the quality of patient care. Your practice can remain focused on its goals by outsourcing your medical billing.

A higher reimbursement will result from this in the future. Plus, you free up the administrators to do the more important tasks of managing the ED, expanding it, and reaching new clients.

2. Fewer calls

It’s normal for a doctor’s office to receive calls almost non-stop every day, but what if patient billing calls were reduced? The medical billing team receives billing inquiries from the medical office, enabling the staff to focus on patient and other physician calls. 

In turn, this helps put the focus back on the patients’ needs, reducing stress.

3. Increased cash flow

Developing and submitting claims as soon as they come in can result in quite a backlog if you do not have the time. What if your medical biller is required to take vacation days by state law? Who will submit the claims?

If you don’t fill the claims filed promptly, your cash flow could be tied up in pending or waiting-to-be-filed claims. A medical billing service expedites and completes the claims as soon as possible. The continuous flow of claims allows for better cash flow. Your hospital or emergency department can avoid interruptions in revenue due to this steady flow of cash.

4. Increased revenue, lower costs

Medical billing and profitability problems are solved with their knowledge and experience. By reducing costs and increasing income for clients, patient billing specialists make claims processing and bill collection easier and less stressful.

5. Greater Reliability

Can one in-house medical biller keep up with all the changes to medical billing or all the paperwork they receive? Possibly, but it won’t be easy. To keep your ED running, you may have to create a separate department for medical billing.

Alternatively, outsourcing may be a better option. You can save much more money by paying a flat fee or percentage than an hourly rate with a medical billing service. After all, the medical billing service delivers the same high level of service to you (the client). Each claim they file should deliver the same results.

6. Fewer Errors

Outsourcing the billing and coding process to a company that specializes in medical billing and coding reduces the chance of errors. It is not the responsibility of medical billers to treat urgent patients or save lives; they are solely focused on filing claims. Then, your doctors, nurses, and administrative staff can focus on what matters to them. By giving the claims proper attention, inconsistencies and errors will be reduced. Over time, you’ll have fewer claims denied or rejected.