What is the medical billing process?
The health care industry requires a professional to handle the administrative task taking place in each hospital. It is because hospitals are too crowded with patients and not every hospital has enough staff to look to bear administrative responsibilities. As a result, doctors are required to pay attention to both patients and the billing process. However, this is not a solution to resolve administrative issues as it ends up affecting the quality of medical care. Billing patients for medical care services consume a lot of time. But since billing is important for insurance reimbursement the doctors can’t choose to skip the billing process. This is where the Medical Billing and Collection process and service comes in.
But what is medical Billing Process?
Well, the medical billing process refers to a long chain that focuses on gathering data for billing purposes. The process includes the patient, the health care provider and the insurance provider in the billing cycle. These three parties play an important role in information sharing, payment, and reimbursement process.
The focus of medical billing is to ensure that the hospital, as well as the doctor, get paid for the medical services offered by them. These services may include diagnosis, treatment, lab tests, and outpatient facilities, etc. The medical biller calculates all the charges to print the final statement. Based on this statement the insurance payer and patient pay the due amount as per their insurance acclaim agreement.
The medical billing process consists of various other administrative and legal tasks like eligibility and verification, medical coding, charge entry, and claims submission. In addition to this medical billing may also include charge posting, credit balance, A/R follow-up, workers comp billing, no-fault billing and payment posting. All these administrative tasks ensure the full payment from the insurance company and the patient by avoiding any insurance fraud.
The process is also vital in maintaining the revenue cycle of the hospital. With an uninterrupted inflow of capital, hospitals can invest in medical care equipment. However, calculating so many charges and billing thousands of patients can be a little tricky. Therefore it is necessary for hospitals to hire a medical expert who knows all about the medical procedures and their charges.
Hospitals can outsource medical billing services from any good medical billing company to reduce workload and stress from the shoulders of their doctors.