Keep Your Oncology Billing Services Optimized For Maximum Revenue Collection

Category : Business
oncology-billing
By JOHN LEE

Have you ever thought, about what keeps your oncology practice running smoothly? The success of any healthcare business is highly dependent on two factors. The first is a high patient volume and the second one is streamlined oncology billing services

Therefore healthcare providers should make sure that they are successfully handling both medical and non-medical obligations efficiently.  

It’s a fact that, just like other businesses, the success of a healthcare practice also depends on your efforts to elevate your revenue collections. Just think for a while, how can you keep your business operations running without getting reimbursements for the healthcare services rendered?  

The answer is clear. That you cannot survive for a long time period in this highly competitive healthcare market without streamlining the revenue cycle management.  So, from quality healthcare services to filing medical claims, healthcare practitioners should give proper attention to every aspect of their medical practice. 

However, gone are the days when medical practitioners were used to putting the responsibility of oncology billing and coding on the existing staff, with zero to little knowledge. 

Now things have changed. The latest evolutions in the healthcare industry i.e federal laws, payers’ policies, medical codes, and billing guidelines, have made oncology billing very complicated. Its efficient management requires a unique set of skills and expertise. Because oncology billing and coding are quite different and complicated from other medical specialties. 

Therefore, oncologists should never rely on inexperienced staff for managing the oncology medical billing services. Because it’s a complicated procedure that involves, unique medical codes, claims submission, follow-up with the insurance companies, denial management, revenue collections, etc.  

Do you want to increase the profitability of your business? Here are the following tips that can help you to drive maximum revenue by optimizing oncology billing services. 

Oncology Billing Automate Documentation Process

As healthcare organizations continue to grow, accurate medical documentation has become more crucial than ever before. Healthcare revenue collection management begins when patients encounter your front desk staff. 

It is the first step of the oncology medical billing services, in which the registration staff captures the patients’ demographic information, such as name, gender, age, date of birth, address,  insurance ID, etc. 

This information is then sent to the backend staff i.e medical billers and coders. They use this data to prepare and submit medical claims to insurance companies. 

A small error due to the negligence of the front desk staff can result in denied/underpayments. So, in order to remove the root causes of the claim denials, oncologists should hire a well-trained staff to ensure error-free and efficient medical documentation.   

In addition to staff training, healthcare practitioners should adopt automatic solutions to increase the efficiency of medical documentation. For this purpose, they should implement Electronic Health Records. 

Because using an EHR solution is the best way to keep a digital record of your patients in a secure manner. In this way, you cannot only reduce the administrative burden of your staff but also can ensure the flow of accurate information throughout the oncology billing services. 

Moreover, EHR Solutions Can Help You In The Following Ways:

  • Ensure patient-centered communication:  Electronic health records reduce the communication gap between patients and medical practitioners. Your patients can easily have access to their records through integrated patient portals.
  • Enables medical practitioners to keep a comprehensive, up-to-date digital record of a patient’s medical history. 
  • Reduces the errors and promotes accurate medical coding and billing.
  • Securely sharing electronic information with patients and other clinicians

Code It Right

Accurate medical coding plays a crucial role in streamlining billing services. The maximum reimbursements depend on error-free medical coding. Because insurance companies get to know about a particular injury, patients’ diagnosis,  treatments, and medical equipment through these codes. 

The adaptation of the ICD-10 has made medical coding extremely complicated as well as time-consuming. Therefore, oncologists should hire certified medical coders, who have extensive experience in their specialty. 

A medical coding specialist plays an important role in saving your practice from financial loss as well as legal troubles. They are responsible to extract information about patients’ diagnoses and treatments from the medical documents and ensure their accurate translation into the standard medical codes. 

It is the responsibility of the medical coders to make sure that they use precise codes to avoid payment denials and particularly billing frauds. Because the following coding errors are considered malpractice and can result in federal penalties, heavy fines, and sometimes imprisonment. 

  • Upcoding: It occurs when medical claims contain medical codes for the more expensive healthcare services than actually performed. This tactic is sometimes used to collect the maximum revenue. 
  • Undercoding: It occurs when healthcare providers failed to describe the full extent of treatment that a patient received.

File The Clean Medical Claims

Inefficient claims management is the major reason that slows down the oncology billing services. Because submission of erroneous claims leads to claim denials. As a result, healthcare providers lose significant revenue. 

Therefore, medical practitioners should hand over this responsibility to highly trained medical billers, with hands-on experience in your specialty i.e. oncology billing. 

It is the responsibility of the medical billers to file error-free medical claims that can be accepted in the first place. For this purpose, they must have access to the advanced billing software. 

That improves the efficiency and accuracy of medical claims. Innovative billing tools can help you to catch potential errors before claims submission. That ultimately leads to clean claims submission and healthcare providers get complete reimbursements.

Outsource Oncology Medical Billing Services

The above-mentioned tips are crucial to streamlining the oncology medical billing services. It’s a fact that, without the assistance of a dedicated team comprising certified coders and billers, healthcare providers cannot execute the entire billing process. 

But the medical practitioners, who are already struggling with the constant revenue loss find it difficult to manage an in-house billing department. Because managing the oncology billing services in-house, required a considerable amount of time and investment. Which can increase your financial as well as administrative burden. 

If you are facing such issues, then hiring a professional medical billing company is the best solution to come out of the economic crisis. Outsourced oncology billing experts help you in the following ways: 

  • Reduces administrative burden and allows you to focus on the core aspects of your business i.e. patients care. 
  • Help you to reduce the administrative expenses related to the in-house oncology billing department. 
  • Ensure the submission of medical claims with accurate medical codes, patient information, etc. 
  • Prevent claim denials and streamline reimbursements. 
  • Improves the medical accounts receivable collections. 

Are you looking for innovative ways to keep your healthcare business afloat? Then outsourcing oncology billing services is the best option for your practice.  

Medcare MSO is an industry-leading medical billing company in the United States. Our well-qualified experts provide custom-tailored billing solutions as per your financial needs. Contact Us today to make the best deal for your business.

Leave a comment