How to Interview and Hire a Billing Service
There are many reasons why medical practices hire an outside billing service – lower costs and higher expertise leading to increased collections; executive-level reporting; less personnel management; permit the practice to focus on patient care rather than medical billing.
If your practice is thinking about these issues, below is a short practical guide to interviewing and selecting an outside billing service.
Find 3-4 potential billing companies:
Referrals from other doctors who are using a billing service
What do they like and dislike about their current service?
Google Search
LinkedIn Search
Conduct an interview with their principal – face-to-face if feasible, or by telephone if not
Most important issue: Determine if they have a strong and established process for managing the billing cycle
Acquisition and organization of information from the medical office
Follow-up on unpaid claims
Patient billing and interactions
Clear, concise, informative reports
Collections/Month
“Month over month” and “year over year” comparisons
Accounts receivables
Coding utilization
Quality control
How do they find and fix small billing problems before they become BIG billing problems?
Other Interview Questions and Issues:
Will you interact with the company principal or with an account manager?
Account managers generally have less authority to resolve problems, less incentive to ensure clients’ long-term satisfaction, and have higher turn-over rates
What is the experience level and background of the company’s executive(s) and staff?
How do they manage HIPAA compliance?
Encrypted email system
Encryption on file transfers
VPN access to remote terminals
Discuss any specific issues that are concerns for you and how they would address them.
Get a demonstration of their billing software.
How easily can your front desk determine outstanding patient balances?
How easily can you track financial performance?
Is it web-based and accessible from anywhere? Or does it require special access software?
Does it include or integrate with an EHR? If not, how will they integrate with your EHR (if you have one)?
What are their fees?
Percentage of collections vs. hourly fees
Set-up costs
Software costs
If they charge a percentage of collections:
Rates vary depending on practice size and specialty
For most practices, reasonable rates generally range from 5% to 8%
Rates lower than that require short-cuts on quality
Rates higher than that reflect inefficiencies in the billing process
Rusty Wilson is the founder and principal of eMed Partners, a full-service medical billing company for physicians and medical practices.
For more about our billing services: http://emedpartners.com/
To follow Rusty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rusty-wilson-520206/