In a recent survey on billing trends, researchers looked at what billers liked most about their job, what they found most stressful, and what they would change about their billing software. A wide variety of billing roles were surveyed including third-party billers, healthcare providers, management and administration, in-house billers, office staff members and office managers.
General billing, coding and collections processes ranked highest (25%) for most stressful, followed by denial management (19.4%). When asked what they would change about their medical billing software, better reporting functionality stood out, with 26.6% of respondents naming it explicitly.
We know firsthand that the billing and collections process is stressful, so it’s understandable that billers seek better reporting from their medical billing software.
But how can billing teams reduce their stress to get to the level of reporting that instigates action? How do they access the holy grail of reports that result in cleaner billing, coding and collections?
Many healthcare revenue cycle and billing vendors would say the answer lies in the most comprehensive enterprise-wide medical billing software money can buy. There are many cost considerations to sophisticated software such as hardware, implementation assistance, training, and ongoing network fees along with maintenance fees.
There’s an important takeaway from the cost considerations I just listed – half of them require human intervention. In order to achieve superior reporting capabilities from a software investment, the human element – service – is unavoidable. Yet so many billing vendors tout the software and technology components and stop short of the service, leaving many billing teams where they started – frustrated and stressed out with lack of reporting functionality. The technology is there, but not the service that must be put in for the ROI people seek.
I don’t want to attack medical billing software at large because not all companies sacrifice services. But in my long tenure I’ve seen many out-of-the-box type software sold to a billing team without the level of customization or interaction required to make the deal a success. The billing team has the shiny new software but no one to talk when service or support is needed, leading to frustration.
For instance, I was once introduced to a physician group who was unhappy with their billing company not because they weren’t collecting. In fact, they consistently collected on average 75% of charges they should’ve collected on. But the physician group believed the billing company was leaving 25% of charges on the table. In the billing software company’s eyes, they were doing their job. For the physician group, they could’ve been making more money. Lack of communication and misunderstanding led to frustration.
And this is where service comes in. This physician group took a leap and switched to First Coast Billing Group. The software did the job from a reporting perspective, but the true value and additional 25% of charges recouped were in the form of service, interaction, consulting and guidance. Service is pointing out issues, digging deep and getting to the bottom of why bills aren’t being collected. The software is necessary not only for reporting but to get work done, no doubt. But experience and industry knowledge are what identify the trends or patterns on the reports and bring more money in the door.
What do you invest in first, software or service, to improve collections and reduce stress? Chicken or the egg? It’s up to your practice on which is tackled first, but I’m here to tell you that you can’t invest in one and not the other and expect a better return on investment.