Due to the nature of the patient population, it becomes difficult to take care of the medical billing services without any complexities or issues, especially in comparison to the other medical specialties. When it comes to handling the behavioral billing services by the in-house billing team it requires additional care because patients with focused-care treatment require additional services, literary introductions, training with regards to patient handling and support training. This ends up exhausting for the in-house team’s patience levels, resources, and time which can be put to better use.
What are the common challenges faced by medical settings when it comes to behavioral health billing services?
- Assisting in the provision of comprehensive treatment for patients with severe and/or incapacitating behavioral problems, which frequently call for specialty-specific programs.
- Insufficient time to plan, carry out, and attend to patient demands
- Manual claims management procedures increase A/R days and administrative burden
- Failure to disclose financial responsibilities to patients will result in collection problems
- The most common medical billing error is still inaccurate coding
- Inaccurate patient data collection causes delays in claims reimbursement
Advantages of outsourcing the behavioral health billing to a reliable medical billing company
There are a myriad range of reasons as to why the behavioral health providers outsource their billing services to the medical billing companies, let’s glance through the same, shall we?
As your medical practice grows with the regular patient inflow, it becomes difficult to keep up with the exhausting process when it comes to limited time, advanced EHR and expertise. This is exactly why the medical settings decide to outsource their behavioral health medical billing services to make the entire process streamlined and ease the pressure on the in-house team.
- Greater Productivity: Because they are not required to utilize the dozens of PCP-specific codes, mental health specialists don’t need such codes to impede their efforts while billing; outsourcing medical billing or using specialty-specific software helps reduce busywork and information to increase productivity.
- More effective patient management: If patients are dissatisfied with every office visit or phone call or unable to visit because of financial difficulties, engaging them will prove to be difficult. However, medical billing companies are well-aware of how to handle these situations at an ease to maintain an effective patient management system.
Medical specialty specific benefits
One advantage of outsourcing behavioral health billing services to a third-party RCM provider is eliminating the administrative responsibilities associated with behavioral health billing. Additionally, using a specialized provider helps to eliminate staff mistakes because they will have through extensive training and have more billing expertise than your internal team could ever hope to amass.
When this task is given to professionals who spend their days concentrating on the financial specifics of behavioral health practices, inpatient, outpatient, or a combination of services, providing medical billing services for them is made simpler.
You can rely on the third-party medical billing company to increase the flow of revenue while providing you with access to the analytics your team needs for reports on all aspects, financial and otherwise, to describe your operations. This includes instantly knowing the appropriate ICD-10 code to use for a patient and upholding high standards for getting paid on the first submission of a claim.
The most commonly used CPT codes in the behavioral health billing process
- 90791: For the intake session.
- 90834: Individual therapy sessions lasting 45 to 55 minutes
- 90837: Sessions lasting 56 minutes or longer
- 90846: Couples or family therapy conducted without the patient present
- 90847: Couples or family therapy with the patient present.
- 90839: Crisis psychotherapy, 60 minutes (30-74 minutes)
A few tips for a streamlined behavioral health billing services:
- Pe-authorization to ensure zero wastage of time: Whenever your in house team works with a new client, there is a requirement of pre-authorization. This is often mandatory when it comes to the first and initial sessions of the behavioral health system.
- Updating patient information: It is very significant to keep a track of accurate and up-to-date information regarding the patients. In order to make accurate claims, each and every minute detail needs to be super-accurate. Even if the marital status, or address changes, then the details need to be changed immediately else it leads to claim-denials.
- Timely filing of claims: When it comes to submission of the claims, it is very necessary to submit these claims in time and within a certain period of time. Thus, ensure to have a proper streamlined schedule to have smooth and transparent timely filing of claims
Key notes to look for the best behavioral health medical billing company
- Ensure that they’re specialized and hold years of expertise in billing for a behavioral health provider
- Verify and cross-check the years of expertise the medical billing company holds in the industry and get in touch with their clients to seek their honest testimonials
- Ensure that the medical billing service provider has a clearly-laid policy when it comes to the trends and the technology of the behavioral health companies.
This listicle will ensure that you have the entire process easy and takes you and your medical setting a long way!
Wrapping up
It’s really too bad that filing insurance claims is so difficult. We wish it were simpler because the entire procedure costs our healthcare system money and leads to frustration and inefficiency. When it comes to behavioral health billing, there are lingering problems that a medical setting has-to deal with given the complex nature of the special service. However, you always have the choice to resort to the professionals of behavioral health billing to ensure that your entire revenue management cycle is streamlined and coordinated with the advanced software. The best way to grow and expand your medical setting is to let the professionals handle their niche while you handle yours-taking care of the patients. If you’re looking to outsource behavioral health billing services in Ohio or for the best behavioral health medical billing company in Florida, Medisys Data Solutions is merely one click away! Let’s get started, shall we?
